Truly, life is Stranger than Fiction (AmP movie review)

This weekend I went to see Stranger than Fiction. It features Will Ferrell in an unlikely dramatic lead, Dustin Hoffman as the teacher of literary criticism that Ferrell goes to for help, and Emma Thompson as the reclusive genius who, it turns out, is writing the story of Ferrell's life. I enjoyed the movie and want to take a look at what I think it is trying to say. Granted, I have my papist glasses on (I rarely take them off because I think they help me see better), but I think what I discovered in the movie really is there.

*Spoiler warning* I’m going to give away plot details in this essay - it is the only way to make my points. So, read on if you have seen it, but if you have not seen it, be warned that you will probably lose the ability to see the movie with fresh eyes. Alternately, you might be able to see how well my claims hold up under close viewing.

Since the movie requires so many suspensions of belief and outlandish presuppositions, one can not expect very much plot integrity from it, rather, it is the movie’s message that stands out all the more clear: I think the central theme of Stranger than Fiction is "the plan" for Ferrell’s life as envisioned and created by Thompson, and lived (and chosen) by Ferrell. Thompson is a God-like character who controls the events in the movie (albeit only to a point), and Ferrell’s life and circumstances are her creation. It is the old tension between fate and free-will. And I think in the end the issue is treated rather brilliantly.

Ferrell begins the movie living out Thompson's plan for his life completely ignorant that there is a plan at all. He works for the IRS, deals entirely in numbers and reduces human life to numbers (none too subtlety portrayed by the cute CG overlays during the opening credits and throughout much of the movie). He counts his brush strokes in the morning instead of trying to remember his dreams (if he has any).

Out of the blue, then, he hears Thompson's voice narrating the most intimate details of his morning routine. His life is immediately turned upside-down with the realization that he is not alone and that there is someone else involved in his existence. This someone knows who Ferrell better than he knows himself, and knows his future while he, on the other hand, has never bothered to think about it.

When Ferrell realizes that he is following a plan which has been set out for him by Thompson, he initially tries to cease living at all. And yet the plan comes for him when he tries to hide away in his home (breaking into his living room with a wrecking crane as it turns out).

Next, he tries to break away from the plan by doing something different. He radically changes his life, even improves it, by learning the guitar (his childhood dream that he let slip away), and pursuing the (implausibly-friendly) Ana, the first love of his life. But even in these developments, Ferrell is actually still following the plan. Only now he is doing it out of his desires and not a blind (fatalistic) submission. He is no longer in the realm of numbers, but in the realm of cookies and relationships, but he is still in the plan.

So far, the situation is uneasy but at least looking up for Ferrell. No longer an automaton, he has enriched his life and found a new and wonderful existence he never knew before. But now comes the hard part: the plan requires that he die. We find out that every one of Thompson's previous books is a tragedy, and we all know that heroes die in tragedies. Ferrell, of course, does not like this discovery at all ("it's such bad timing!"), and succeeds in to searching Thompson out, confronting her, and demanding to read the ending of his life as she has written it.

Ferrell manages to read the script and foresee the ending for his life … and then, amazingly, he accepts it. When he hands the script back to Thompson, he is not accepting the end of his life because his story is good fiction, he is accepting it because it is good life. It should be remembered that Ferrel has just had a conversation with Hoffman where it is impressed upon him that everyone has to die; it is only a matter of where and when. That said, how should one die? What should one die for?

Thompson's plan involves Ferrell saving the life of a small boy. And when Ferrel walks up to the curb in front of the bus stop, he really has chosen to be there and save that boy's life. He did not have to get out of bed that morning. And yet he did, and that is the plan. In the end, his death is 100% his choice, and 100% Thompson's plan.

If one misses this point that Ferrell's choice to show up at the curb is truly free, one might be tempted to accuse the movie of fatalism. However, Ferrell's knowledge of what will happen does not rule out his actions still being his own. Rather, he has embraced an opportunity to sacrifice his life in a more noble way than any other he can envision. In essence, he cooperates with a beautiful and proper foreordaining of events.

The movie takes its point one step further. Thompson, who has only written tragedies because they are the best fiction she can compose, breaks down at the last moment and rewrites Ferrell's story. His survival is really more of a resurrection - he is saved on the very brink of death (literally, halfway through the word "dead"), albeit ruffled by the experience.

But why is he saved? Because he is the first character in any of Thompson's stories to choose the death laid out for him, as opposed to her previous characters who have all had death forced upon them. To paraphrase Thompson's words in the movie: "a man who would give up his life - wouldn't that be the kind of man you'd want to live?"

In a superabundance of grace, Thompson gives back Ferrell his life because he has chosen to give it up. Tragedy becomes comedy. And there is the message: knowing the plan of your life does not impoverish your ability to make choices, rather, as long as you act for the good (saving the boy’s life, providing for Ana's future), knowing the plan actually helps you to make the best choices. And as we know it, that is part of the plan as well. No rewrites needed.

Truly, life is stranger than fiction, and often better.