STRANGER THAN FICTION

STRANGER THAN FICTION (2006, Marc Forster, Zach Helm screenplay)
You don't understand that this isn't a story to me, it's my life! I want to live!

Pleasing enough tale of a man who starts hearing a narrator inside his head, only to realize he’s a character in somebody else’s novel – and the story probably won’t end happy. It’s ADAPTATION Lite: the comedy’s not the least bit black, the carpe diem theme is easily digested, and the romance is sweet and comforting (with Maggie Gyllenhaal cute as a counter-cultural bug's ear). Soul food? Well, some folks believe it's not just Will Ferrell who's a character in Somebody Else’s story.



Check out some thoughts on story from J.R.R. Tolkien and Wendell Berry. There's also a Crystal Downing piece at Books & Culture called "Theology Is Stranger Than Fiction" which expands on my elliptical closing comment: beware spoilers after "In The Mind of the Maker, Sayers suggests that the relationship between the writer's idea and its fulfillment in the written word parallels the relationship between Creator God and the incarnated Christ."