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Stranger than fiction
Oct. 12th, 2007 12:43 pmOkay, I have a couple of rants in the queue (Robin Hobb, Bookswim, random thoughts on rereading Riddlemaster) but I must interrupt those because I just finished watching Stranger than Fiction, which everyone told me was So Good and which I was skeptical of. (With reason. Usually when everyone tells me a movie is So Good, I don't agree-- Shakespeare in Love and Amelie fell into this category-- I mean, they were fine, but they weren't all that.) Well, this time everyone was right. It really was all that.
I realize everyone else in the world has already seen this movie, but I shall rant about it anyway. It's a bit like Adaptation (I know, everyone's already made that comparison as well) in that it's about blurring the lines between fiction and reality. But I hated Adaptation; I thought it was the biggest waste of my time; and I loved Stranger than Fiction.
Adaptation tried very, very hard to be clever, to impress me with its intellectualism. It was always drawing attention to how smart and cool it was. The net result was that it utterly failed to capture me, and when "moving" things started to happen I was confused and thought it was another clever trick, and thus utterly failed to be moved. Stranger than Fiction didn't try at all to be clever, and rarely drew any attention to itself. It tried to be intelligent and thoughtful, and succeeded. It, like all good/great literature, wanted to say something about life and the people who live it and the choices they have to make and how they change as a consequence of and/or as a response to making those choices. And it did. And it touched me.
I can't say it any better than it was said here (no plot spoilers, but substantial spoilers for one scene), which was what convinced me to watch it. Fortunately I read the link so long ago that I'd forgotten everything she said before I watched it.
...I think movies try way too often to be clever, and that really turns me off.
I realize everyone else in the world has already seen this movie, but I shall rant about it anyway. It's a bit like Adaptation (I know, everyone's already made that comparison as well) in that it's about blurring the lines between fiction and reality. But I hated Adaptation; I thought it was the biggest waste of my time; and I loved Stranger than Fiction.
Adaptation tried very, very hard to be clever, to impress me with its intellectualism. It was always drawing attention to how smart and cool it was. The net result was that it utterly failed to capture me, and when "moving" things started to happen I was confused and thought it was another clever trick, and thus utterly failed to be moved. Stranger than Fiction didn't try at all to be clever, and rarely drew any attention to itself. It tried to be intelligent and thoughtful, and succeeded. It, like all good/great literature, wanted to say something about life and the people who live it and the choices they have to make and how they change as a consequence of and/or as a response to making those choices. And it did. And it touched me.
I can't say it any better than it was said here (no plot spoilers, but substantial spoilers for one scene), which was what convinced me to watch it. Fortunately I read the link so long ago that I'd forgotten everything she said before I watched it.
...I think movies try way too often to be clever, and that really turns me off.
