Cinematical

This looks like a funny movie and I am excited to see it. I saw previews several weeks ago in a movie theater which really made me interested. However some recent TV commercials for this movie don't let you hear the lady narrating (the book author) in the background, which to me doesn't make the movie look as appealing. I still want to see it based on the original movie trailer I saw in the theater, but I think the TV commercial (without the narrator’s voice) does not do it justice and may not make people as interested. Of course Will and Dustin have been promoting it on the Today show (and others) so maybe they are getting the story line out there a little better then some of the TV commercials.

Reply

I dunno--I think I remember at least a couple Twilight Zones with a very similar premise. Also, Grant Morrison wrote a truly brilliant story arc(h?) for DC's Animal Man comic book back in the early 1990s about Animal Man discovering that he's a fictional comic book character. Seriously, the Morrison piece was absolutely mind blowing.

But more interesting prior art aside, I think the story of a bland man with a bland life discovering he's being written (in a bland story, one assumes) seems pretty, I don't know bland--and illogical, too. Wouldn't it be better if he was some incredibly important person who suddenly discovers that his incredible exploits that save millions of lives every year are actually... fictional? Imagine the character's trauma when he discovers that he is actually not skilled in death-defying feats and that the writer actually makes sure he survives by the skin of his teeth every time.

No, we get to "enjoy" John Q. Blandfellow as he discovers he's a character in someone's uninspired story. All I can say is: THANKS, Hollywood! (But I'll be saving my money.)

Reply

THIS MOVIE IS SO SWEET!

Reply

Good movie, great review.

Reply

The film seemed rather promising at first. It's not really about a man hearing voices. It's deeper than that. That is just a way to get to the real issue -- destiny vs. free will. These are two mutually exclusive ideologies. The ancient Greeks believed in destiny -- that no matter what one did in life, one could not alter one's destiny. When Christianity exterminated the pagan religions on which is was clealy based, this ideology was adjusted to include the idea of free will and how one can make choices that can change the future.

Harold Crick tries to avoid his destiny by staying home, but his destiny finds him even at home. So at this point I was thinking that the film was going to be about how destiny is set and "che sara, sara." But no. The film went in a different direction.

Harold Crick figures out that he is a character in a book, a character that is about to be killed off. He finds the authoress, Kay Eiffel, and intervenes on his own behalf. She has already sketched the ending of her book and Crick's death, but has not typed it up yet. She lets him read her sketch. In it, he is killed while saving the life of a boy by pushing him out of the way of an approaching bus. He tells the authoress that he really likes the book and the ending, and that she should go ahead and type it. Wow. He chooses to die -- so that this wonderful, heroic, inspirational tale can be told.

The end of the film spells out the point of the film. It is one thing for someone who does not know he is going to die to act heroically. But imagine a man who KNEW that he was going to die CHOOSE to die -- even though he could have altered his "destiny". He could have asked Kay Eiffel not to kill him off. But he made the choice! And Kay Eiffel says that one wants to keep a man such as Crick alive. And she does. She does not kill him off. He does get hit by the bus, appears to be dead, but it turns out he survives. He is risen from the dead, as it were...

Now let me spell it out for you. This is about Jesus. Jesus prayed that God spare him, just as Crick (is the alliteration with the similarly monosyllabic "Christ" coincidental?) begged Kay Eiffel not to kill him off. Christ knew he was going to be killed. He spoke of his eventual murder. Crick also knew he was giong to be killed. Christ chose to fulfill his destiny, even though he knew he would be killed. Crick chose to fulfill his "destiny" and not alter it, even though he could have.

Towards the middle of the film one hears Kay Eiffel state in a TV interview that she does not believe in God. In the epilogue, she delivers a speech about how one should thank God for every little blessing because we are all a part of a grand scheme; and she knows this because she has experienced it (so she has abandoned her "foolish" unbelief and is now a believer). And so, the way she kept Crick "alive" is the way you and I should keep "Christ" alive in our hearts -- and live by the example of how even though they could have avoided their own death, they chose to die in order to save someone else. Because such selfishness apparently guarantees a kind of glorious immortality -- a resurrection from the dead.

It absolutely ruined the film for me. Why couldn't one appreciate Crick's heroic act without it being a Jesus parallel? Why does everything have to be a part of a Grand Cosmic Plan in which people must die in order for other people to be saved -- from the merciless destiny to which GOD Himself (Eiffel) sends them? Why must we believe that our lives are an integral part of the life of the Universe? When will we face our own egocentrism, our own arrogance? When will we face the fact that not everything that happens is "all about me"? Why can't our lives be beautiful and meaningful as what they are, without us needing to believe that there is a predestined purpose to them which must be fulfilled?

Reply

I like the story idea of the movie. But I was dissapointed that the boom operator kept dropping. I must have seen it 15 times which really annoyed me and ruined the movie for me.
Did anyone else noticed it?? It was so obvoius even my 11 year old daughter noticed it and asked "what is that?"
You think with all the money to make this movie, they could have edited it or perhaps get a sound boom operator with a stronger arm?

Reply

I was looking forward to this movie for months ever since I saw the preview while on a short trip to Boston. The premise was very strong.

I loved the movie. The plot was brilliant. The acting was brilliant. But after the movie thinking about it one thing really struck a nerve and its completely ruined the movie for me.

The novel that Eifel is writing is supposed to be her opus. He life's work. Ten years in the making. Her biggest fan, Dr. Hilbert felt it was the best piece of literature he ever read. Her masterpiece. But in the end, the story she wrote was nothing spectacular. There is no tragedy. A man lives a mundane life thats exact and orderly. Falls in love. Looses that order. Gets hit by a bus. Why is that such a great novel? Its barely an interesting short story. Professor Hilbert beleived in the ending so much that he tried convinced harold he had to die. Hell, Harold even did. But it all seemed so trite. Even the twist of comedy of him being saved by his watch. Thats not a twist, thats a one-liner.

It makes me wonder if there was a more ironic and tragic ending. If somehow the homeless schitzophrenic man was meant to kill Harold. The character was given lines and used in several scenes for no effect what so ever other than to show that Ana was a giving person. A true tragic ending would have been if the very kindness that defined Ana's character ended up killing Harold. A brilliant ending tying in the watch's time change, the bus driver character, the little boy character, Harold's OCD and his job at the IRS, ana's compasion and work at the bakery - it could have been written and it truly could have been an amazing ending. The kind of ending that would have made Harold realize that it was worth dying for this book to be published. Something that would have not only made his death meningful in real life but also made this book one of the great works of modern fiction. Instead, Eifel, this brilliant tragic writer who has been unable to come up with an ending for ten years shrugs her shoulders and decides "Eh, hit by a bus. Save some random kid".

I might be missing the point. it might be that Eifel changed her ending from "Super amazing oh god!" to "Hit by a bus" to save Harold's life. But then why is he hit by a bus at all? Why not have him, I dunno, miss his bus and live happily ever after?

Aside form the fact that it was a lousy story inside the story, the movie was good. I definietely reccomend it.

Reply

Guys critics in this thread are just unfair because the entire movie is great imo.
You guys miss something very important. Just think Harold life exists exactly as it is with or without the narration of his life. He is just a lonely and sad man who was lucky and found a girl that made his life worth living. It is as simple as that.
Eifel is in depression who is obsessed by death. And only by finding Harold's story, she finds meaning in living. That's the poetry of this great movie.

Reply

This movie clearly is depicting 2 biblical stories at the same time. As told earlier by Rami, Crick at is pretty much Jesus in that he HAS to die to save the greater good. I think what the author is telling is not so much that he is being resurrected like Jesus but that we must consider moving forward religiously as times change. As the Old Testament with a Angry God was later changed to the New Testament as we became more civilized, I believe the director is telling us that there may yet still be another interpretation of the Bible that we can look at. Or it could just be another movie about Christ and how he died for our sins. Clearly Crick is Christ and Eiffel is God and Queen Latifa is some sort of Angel in heaven perhaps St Peter helping "him". Then there is of course Dustin Hoffman (probably representing all of the desciples, no coincidence he is barefoot in his office). I'm hoping there is more.
The other reference to the Bible was the glaringly obvious Adam and Eve reference. This occured when Ana offered him a cookie and he said that he never had real cookies before (the apple in the Adam and Eve story), and when she "forces" it on him, he tastes it like it is decadent and wonderful, and she eyes him with a seductive look. And the whole back-hoe tearing down his house is quite literally God exposing his nakedness and casting him out of the Garden of Eden. No coincidence that the guitar he picked out was green like the olive leaves used to cover themselves.
Finally, the watch was also a symbol of GOd, trying to tell him what to do, and when he ignores it, things go terribly wrong. But in the end, it is the watch that saves him, despite his forsaking it earlier, and now the watch (or God) is always with him, as a permanent part of his body (much like receiving communion with the wine). As a final obvious symbol, the an actual apple is used in the final scene of his "death" incoporpating both the Jesus theme with the Genesis theme. Quite interesting for what was billed as simple comedy. This movie is far from that and I think that they are trying to get a point across that most viewers weren't prepared to encounter with it being touted as a comedy.


Marc Mitchell

Reply