Stranger Than Fiction: Difference between revisions

[[File:strangerthanfiction.jpg|frame|Watch that punctuation.]]

 

 

Mundane IRS auditor Harold Crick (played by [[Will Ferrell]]) was minding his own business, living his daily routine, when one day, he begins to hear a voice... the voice of an author. Her voice follows him everywhere, narrating his daily activities, much to his annoyance. After all, there's not much to narrate. Beyond going to work, brushing his teeth, and eating meals alone, nothing at all happens worth narrating. Until he hears one line that changes everything. "Little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death."

* [[Cover Drop]]: The disc image is a green apple which helps inspire Eiffel's ending.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Karen Eiffel.

'''Karen:''' "No. They came pre-smoked." }}

** Penny too, in a quiet, subtle, lethal way:

* [[Design Student's Orgasm]]: Well, more of an auditor's orgasm. Harold's number-obsessed view of the world shows up as hovering numbers and graphs that expand out of the objects he's analyzing.

** Not ''nearly'' as much as the end credit sequence, especially after watching the special features about the the design company.

* [[Genre Savvy]], [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]: ([[Playing with a Trope|Played with]]. The professor is [[Genre Savvy]] because he studies literature, but they can't take advantage of it because they don't know what kind of story Harold Crick is in.)

** Once the professor actually believes Harold is being narrated (due to the "little did he know" line below), he instantly starts displaying his [[Genre Savvy]].

* [[Granola Girl]]: Ana Pascal, our resident baker.

* [[Ice Cream Koan]]: "A tree doesn't... ''think'' it's a tree? It is a tree!"

** In addition, both the novel and the film itself treat {{spoiler|Harold's watch as its own character. When the bus slams into Harold, the first thing it hits is his watch:-which is destroyed, but a part of it becomes embedded permanently in his arm and slows down the hemorrhage that would have killed him otherwise. So just like Harold [[Taking the Bullet|stepped in front of a bus to save a child]], his watch took the brunt of the hit for him}}.

* [[I Know You Know I Know]]: Inverted hilariously when Harold mentions to Professor Hilbert that the narrator said "Little did he know":

* [[Lemony Narrator]]: In-universe example with Karen Eiffel's narration. Notable that she's not a man (though she is British), unlike most examples of this trope.

* [[Like You Were Dying]]: The premise of the movie. Harold thinks he's going to die soon. Professor Hilbert's advice is to do whatever it is he's always wanted to and never had the chance to

'''Professor Hilbert:''' Harold, if you pause to think, you'd realize that that answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led... and, of course, the quality of the pancakes. }}

* [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]]: The suggestion throughout that the book Karen was working on would ultimately become this film.