Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction, a movie about a man who lives a life most people would find boring.  A life no one would want to watch as a movie, let alone read about in a book.  Yet, it is a film that intrigues us anyway.  The main character, Harold Crick, has a strict routine he follows every morning, until one morning when he starts to hear a voice.  This is no ordinary voice, though, this voice is narrating his life.  Everyone thinks he is crazy--as well they should--and he goes on this quest to find out who the voice is and what story he is in.  Along the way he falls in love, makes a friend, strays from his normal routine to make a life for himself, and saves a life.  He does find out how his story is to end, though, and it is at this point I want to start reflecting.

As I sat watching this movie, I began noticing connections to the Bible.  Yes, I know, I said it.  Go ahead and roll your eyes, I know you did!  It is true, though, I sat in my living room talking to my roommate about it (it was a really long and interesting conversation, too, I might add).  Anyway, like I said, I will start from from when Harold finds out how his story ends, and then I'll jump around from beginning to end.

In this clip, we see Harold looking for a way to rewrite his ending.  This particular clip reminded me of Luke 22:42 where Jesus is on the Mount of Olives praying on the night of his betrayal and cries out, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."  Here, we see Harold cry saying, "I thought you would find a way."  Prof.  Hilbert responds, "There is no other way," also saying that this story--Harold's story--is a masterpiece, Karen Eiffel's best work yet.  Harold then reads the copy himself as he rides the bus, and gives it back to Karen saying, "I read it and I loved it.  There is only one way it can end."  He knows it has to be written this way, and pretty much tells her "not my will, but yours be done."

Going back, now, to Karen Eiffel first meeting Harold, this scene reminds me of Jesus appearing to Thomas after he rose from the dead (John 20:26-29).  To Karen, Harold is just a character, but when she sees him she falls to her knees saying, "your hair, your eyes, your fingers, your shoes..."  She knew just by seeing him who he was (yes, she knew he was coming, but this is a man she knows because of her book).  I know this scene comes before the one above, but even when adapting stories to film sometimes scenes get moved around.  The part I'm referring to isn't until about 2:15.

Thomas said he wouldn't believe unless he put his fingers through the wholes in Jesus' hands, and the whole in his side.  When Jesus appeared to them in the room, Thomas believed, and Jesus said, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."  Karen had to see Harold Crick for herself to believe he was a real person.  Then she found herself wondering how many people she has killed because she wrote their story that way.  Just as Thomas had to physically touch Jesus' wounds, Karen had to see Harold's hair, eyes, fingers, and shoes.


The next clip is Harold embracing his fate (I will be referring to this clip later on, as well).  The time has come and he is ready for it.  Knowing exactly what is to happen and for what purpose, he sacrifices himself to save the life of a child.  I don't think I need to tell you the connection here, but I am going to take a leap and make a different connection--one with the little boy.  He has a line towards the end, one that is rather hard to make out,  he is either saying, "It's not my fault, though," or he says, "It's all my fault, though."  I am going to take a leap--and many may not agree with me, and that is fine--but I think the boy could be Judas. Judas betrays Jesus (I'm not saying the boy betrayed Harold, don't try and twist it like that) but after they take Jesus away, Judas starts feeling bad.  In Matthew 27:3-5, we find that Judas returns the 30 pieces of silver, confesses he sinned, and then hanged himself.  I'm also not saying that now the little boy is going to kill himself, because that is awful and this story has a happy ending (both Stranger Than Fiction, and the story of Jesus!)  My point is, Jesus had to die to save humanity, Harold had to die to save the boy.  For Jesus to be handed over, if it wasn't Judas it would have been someone else.  Harold had to save someone, and because she wrote about the bus driver and the boy in the beginning (they appeared randomly, and you knew they had to be important for some reason, right?  Then you found out Harold had to die.  It was either at that point you put the pieces together, or it was when they showed the boy getting out of bed and the bus driver putting on her uniform.), inevitably it had to be the boy.  If it wasn't the boy, it would have been some other character that would randomly be in the beginning.

Finally you, we have the last scene, the dialog between Prof.  Hilbert and Karen Eiffel.  He asks her why she changed the book.  Was it because Harold was real?  She responds saying, "Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die and then dies; but if the man does know he's going to die and dies anyway, dies...dies willingly, knowing he could stop it, then...I mean, isn't that the type of man you want to keep alive?"  Harold lives (the boy and bus drive won't live regretting their actions, that would mean a whole new book), just like Jesus lives ... okay, not exactly because Harold never actually died.  Where as Jesus was raised from the dead, Harold was saved by his wristwatch.  So who played God in this film?  Some might say the author, Karen Eiffel, I would have as well until I started writing this blog. 

It seems like Karen is the God figure because, in the beginning, we find her standing on a rooftop looking down on "the world below."  She is also writing the story, and we seem to always give authors a sort of god-like-quality.  I however, am going to say the wristwatch is God in this movie.  Why?  How can a watch be God and not the author or other characters?  Good question, thanks for asking!  The God we know is all powerful, all knowing, all seeing, etc.  Karen always intended for Harold to die, she never expected the ending she created.  The watch, however, seemed to be the only constant thing in the film.  If it hadn't shut off, Harold wouldn't of had to reset it.  If Harold wasn't wearing the watch, what could have been used to save him?  I'm going to take another leap now and say the watch always knew Harold's fate, it knew he would live.  It had to shut off when it did so Harold could reset it for 3 minutes later than the actual time.  Even at the end, it beeps to make him leave Ana, and his apartment.  It is also the reason Karen could rewrite the story so Harold would live.  Just like in the story of Jesus, people didn't understand what he meant when he said he would rebuild the temple, and other things he said about his death.  Only God knew.  Karen didn't know he would live--until she rewrote it--but without the watch he would have died.  

The last think I want to touch on (I'm almost done, promise!) isn't about the film connecting to the Bible.  It is just an interesting thing I noticed (here is where I'm referring to the third clip again).  Throughout the movie, Karen is researching different ways to kill Harold.  She stands on a rooftop and thinks about jumping, sits in the rain and thinks about a car accident, she is standing in the ER watching doctors rush by trying to save people, and watches the apples roll onto the street.  The interesting thing I noticed was how all of these elements appear in the ending.  In the first scene with Karen on the roof, the camera is looking at the street below.  As Harold gets ready to leave for his "final" trip to work, the camera looks up at Harold, through the plastic over the whole in his wall.  As Karen thinks about jumping off a roof, Harold is seen standing in his apartment looking through the whole in his wall (yeah, he wasn't jumping, but he could have and it made me think of this first scene with Karen).  The car accident, hello, Harold got hit by a bus!  Karen watching the apples fall in the street is seen in the end when the apple Harold is eating falls to the ground and starts rolling. Watching everything happen in the ER comes back around when Karen is talking about things that we can find reassurance in.  "We can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture ... and maybe the occasional piece of fiction.  And we must remember that all these things ... are, in fact, here for a much larger and nobler cause.  They are here to save our lives." --Karen Eiffel

It's crazy how what was suppose to be Karen's "best work yet," seems to bum Prof.  Hilbert out when it's changed to Harold living.  He just doesn't understand.  The question he asks is one I'm sure all of us have asked...Why?  Why would someone willingly go to their death?  Why life?  (not meant to be why go on living, but why come back to life? and why allow Harold to live?)  I think Karen states it well, "isn't that the type of man you want to keep alive?"  We are Christians because a man willingly laid down his life to save us, and rose again.  He is still alive!  It seems like fiction.  A story made up.  Yet, these types of stories we tell all the time.  We want the hero to live.  Harold Crick couldn't die, but Jesus did.  Harold Crick lived, and Jesus does.  I think it is interesting that even in this film, it is hard to believe Harold lived in the end.