Stranger than fiction

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Movie
German title Stranger than fiction
Original title Stranger than fiction
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2006
length 108 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
JMK 10
Rod
Director Marc Forster
script Zach Helm
production Lindsay Doran
music Britt Daniel ,
Brian Reitzell
camera Roberto Schaefer
cut Matt Chessé
occupation

Stranger Than Fiction ( Stranger Than Fiction ) is a film by director Marc Forster in 2006. Emma Thompson embodies the writer Karen Eiffel. Karen always lets her heroes die at the end of their stories. Harold Crick is the name of her new hero, who totally transforms himself after falling in love. Now there is Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell , in the real world. And suddenly he can hear Karen and learn that he is about to die.

The film opened in the USA on November 10, 2006, and Germany started on February 8, 2007.

action

Harold Crick is an employee of the US Federal Tax Agency . He leads a well-planned, lonely life, and thanks to his love of mathematics, numbers determine his everyday life: in the morning he counts how often he moves the toothbrush and goes to bed at the same time every evening. This information the viewer learns from a spokesperson from the off , but at the morning brushing on a "normal" Wednesday suddenly Harold hears himself, and only he, this voice that miterzählt his life stylish. The voice irritates him, his work suffers.

During a tax audit in a bakery, Harold meets Ana Pascal. He is attracted to her - the commenting voice confirms this - but Miss Pascal does not seem to like him as a tax audit is pending because she deliberately failed to pay the portion of the taxes that she thinks the government is wasting.

Meanwhile, the voice announces that Harold's death is imminent. A psychologist whom he visits diagnoses schizophrenia , but also suggests speaking to an expert on literature. Professor Jules Hilbert is initially not very interested, but then helps Harold and wants to find out which author it is.

Finally, he advises him to enjoy his life independently. Harold then learns to play the guitar and the relationship with Ana becomes more intimate. But suddenly he overhears an interview with the author Karen Eiffel on television at the professor's house and identifies her as the narrator's voice. Hilbert knows: The main characters in Eiffel's novels always die. Thanks to the tax auditor's files, Harold can find her address. It turns out that Harold is the main character in her new novel. Eiffel is just as shocked as Harold to find out that what exactly happens to Harold is what Eiffel types into her electric typewriter.

Harold's tragic end is almost done and just needs to be typed into the typewriter. After reading the manuscript , he consents to his coming death. When he saves a child who falls on a bicycle from being run over by a bus, he is hit by the bus instead. Eiffel hesitates at the words "Harold Crick was de ..." ("Harold Crick was to ...") and then decides on a different ending to her novel, in which Harold survives. A splinter that miraculously blocked an artery saves his life. The splinter came from the wristwatch that dictated Harold's life. Now he is happy with his girlfriend Ana. Eiffel announces to Hilbert - whom she visits at the end - that she wants to revise the book again from the beginning with this new ending in mind and that her assistant has asked the publisher to give the publisher a little postponement. Hilbert, on the other hand, says the book is not as perfect as the original version, but not bad either.

Names with allusions

The names in the film are also based on the motif of the numbers; they refer to natural scientists and mathematicians: Francis Crick (Harold) was a physicist and biochemist. The terminus of the bus line, which shapes Harold's life, is named after a mathematician ( Leopold Kronecker ) as is the object of his desire (cf. Blaise Pascal ; Ana: abbreviation for analysis or the direction of movement according to ana in the fourth dimension). Professor Hilbert ( David Hilbert ) put together a list of 23 questions for Crick, an allusion to the 23 items on Hilbert's list ( Hilbert's problems ) with unsolved mathematical questions. Other names are the internal psychological advisor ( Arthur Cayley ), the therapist Mittag-Leffler and the publishing house Banneker Press ( Benjamin Banneker ). The author's name refers to the Eiffel programming language or directly to the engineer Gustave Eiffel , after whom it is named. Eiffel's assistant, Escher, in turn reminds of MC Escher and the mathematician Joachim Escher .

Reviews

James Berardinelli wrote on ReelViews that there was a lot of "exceedingly well" done in the film and almost nothing bad. The performances of the main actors and those of the supporting actors are "strong". Berardinelli particularly praised the "very good" performance by Will Ferrell, which is not his first attempt to play a serious role. Depending on the needs, he looks "funny", "heroic" or "tragic".

“Comedic narrative experiment developed with staging finesse and well-humored actors, in which reality and invention charmingly get in each other's way. Of course, the romantic story lacks the bite of comparable films. "

“The fact that“ Stranger Than Fiction ”does not turn out to be a cerebral simulation game is due not least to Will Ferrell, who portrays life's tragic tutoring in a low-key way, vulnerable and with subtle humor. [...] So it is above all the great ensemble that creates the poetry between lines and images. Everything in it is carried by the naive desire of the subject to inscribe himself in history against all doubts about identity. Maybe just a strange fairy tale, but without a doubt a damn happy one. "

Awards

The film won the National Board of Review's Best Original Screenplay Award in 2006 . Will Ferrell was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2007 in the Best Actor Comedy / Musical category, but failed to win the award.

publication

Stranger Than Fiction started in cinemas in the US on November 10, 2006 and grossed around $ 53.6 million worldwide with a production budget of around 30 million US dollars. In Germany, it opened in cinemas on February 8, 2007 and was seen by 112,661 viewers, making it number 142 in the 2007 German cinema charts. Since July 10, 2007, the film has been available on both DVD and Blu-ray Disc .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate for stranger than fiction . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2007 (PDF; test number: 108 866 K).
  2. Age indication for weird as fiction . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ^ Review by James Berardinelli
  4. Stranger than fiction. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 6, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. Davif Kleingers: Der Held als Zeilenschinder on Spiegel Online from February 12, 2007, accessed on November 19, 2011
  6. Stranger Than Fiction at boxofficemojo.com , accessed November 19, 2011
  7. TOP 100 DEUTSCHLAND 2007 on insidekino.de , accessed on November 19, 2011