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Stranger than Fiction - a review

By evolvingthoughts on February 11, 2007.

I went to see this film because it looked like a light comedy, starring Will Ferrell. Boy, was I wrong.

It's a highly intelligent piece which deals with representations, metarepresentations, moral choices, the nature of fiction and rhetoric, individual freedom, personal responsibility, and most of all, the worth of a life. Ferrell is almost perfect as a near-autistic bureaucratic drone who discovers life only to have it threatened. This film redeems him from pretty well everything else he's done (even Bewitched). Emma Thompson plays the conflicted author beautifully. And what is more, rather than being an arid intellectual enterprise (a phrase I'm not entirely happy with - intellectual enterprises are rarely arid), you end up caring about all the people involved, from the bus driver to the main characters. I can't say much more, except - this is not merely a comedy. In fact, it's more of a tragedy. Except it isn't. No spoilers - just a very strong recommendation.

Tags
Logic and philosophy
Philosophy of Science

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Do you think that she created Will Farrel 'ex nihilo', as it were? Not that it makes any difference to the story, but it made me wonder.

I think it's supposed to. He's fictional in our world, but so is she. She might have created him, or she might have "latched on" to his story, or he might have created her (if you take this as some kind of paranoid delusion on his part). So which one is the fiction is left an open question. But then they are both fictional. I also liked the implication that

SPOILER WARNING!

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the film is the story of the rewritten novel.

I hadn't thought of that! I'd assumed that we were impartial outside observers. It would take a philosopher to muddle the different levels of reference for me, wouldn't it.

I'm reminded of the works Italo Calvino and Jorge Borges. Meddling with referencing and perspective like that makes for interesting fiction.