Stranger than Casino Royale's Fiction

I hate it when I see two new movies in one weekend. This last weekend I saw the blockbuster Casino Royale and the relatively more cerebral Stranger Than Fiction. The former, a sort of James Bond prequel, has had a lot of hype surrounding it. Rather than fuel that fire needlessly, I want to review Stranger Than Fiction. It's not quite as memorable as Casino Royale, but it's worth checking out.

I walked out of the theater after seeing Stranger Than Fiction knowing that I had liked it, but I wasn't sure why. It has the absurdist elements of a Charlie Kaufman screenplay (like Being John Malkovich or Adaptation) and also the feel of an earnest, minimalist romantic comedy like Punch-Drunk Love. I'm not sure if I bought the surreal aspects of the story, but that's somehow fine. Ultimately, I think Will Ferrell and Judi Dench sold a shaky script.

So what happens? As most people can figure out from the trailer, Judi Dench plays "M", the leader of MI6 and a novelist. She has been writing a novel for nearly ten years and suffers from writer's block. In particular, she cannot think of a fitting death for her protagonist that is both appropriate and tragic. Her hero, James Crick, is a real man who begins to hear a narration of his daily activities. He tries to seek help to understand what he's going through. He sees a psychiatrist who assures him that he has schizophrenia, and he takes a much-needed vacation. Despite his vacation status, he manages to foil a bomb plot at an airport in Miami. Finally, he finds a literature professor named Le Chiffre (played by Dustin Hoffman) who is willing to humor an apparently crazy man who thinks a British woman is narrating his life.

Mr. Crick also meets Vesper Pascal (played by Maggie Gyllanhaal) when he does an audit on her. Ms. Pascal is a baker who refuses to pay the portion of her taxes that funds wars and political kick-backs. She initially despises Mr Crick because he represents the government and because he appears to be a typical alpha-male tough guy. He eventually breaks through her tough exterior after she bakes him some cookies and he kills some bad guys in a stairwell. After that, it's pretty much love all around. He manages to woo her through some skillful guitar playing, and she repays the favor by saving his life from a poisoning.

The big revelation comes when Mr. Crick sees a taped interview of the novelist, played by Judi Dench, and immediately recognizes the voice narrating his life. He tells Dustin Hoffman's character who regretfully informs him that this particular author always kills the protagonist. It should be noted that Le Chiffre has seemingly bought this cockamamie story about being a character in a novel. Despite the odds, "Crick. James Crick." sets out to find this author and let her know the full story.

He finds her after being tortured by Le Chiffre in a very ballsy fashion, if you catch my drift. After presenting himself to the author as a living and breathing character, M gives him the chance to read the novel and her outline for the ending that details Mr. Crick's death. Mr. Crick then reads it and tells M that he accepts his fate. He feels that his imminent death (and the manner in which it occurs) would bring more meaning to his life than most people ever accomplish. M grudgingly and guiltily agrees to finish the book and effectively end this man's life.

Aware of his imminent demise, Crick goes about his business as a spy/IRS auditor and chases Vesper Pascal around Venice. We find out that she had used her tax evasion scheme to work with Le Chiffre and betray Crick because her husband had been kidnapped. We never met her husband, but he apparently was being held to make Vesper follow the terrorists' demands. Crick catches on after a phone call from M about some missing money. He chases her into an abandoned building where she dies in its collapse into the sea, and he saves a boy from being crushed by the building. M had meant for Crick to die a hero's death in the collapse (in her novel, of course) but we find that she spares him that fate. He ends up in the hospital in a full-body cast. M's reasoning for the change is that the story of a man who finds out his fate and becomes resigned to it is much less tragic than that of a man who is ignorant of the inexorable path he follows that leads to his demise.

I remember being satisfied at the film's conclusion, but in retrospect I feel differently. The plot was too convoluted and polluted with twists that it became very difficult to recall precisely the motivation for the characters' behavior. Vesper's betrayal, in particular, was an almost forced twist that added very little to the ultimate conclusion other than make Mr. Crick single and probably unable to form meaningful relationships or to trust others. It really seemed like two films: one about a desk jockey struggling in the currents of fate and another about an greenhorn spy fighting a terrorist organization and discovering what it takes to be an effective covert agent.