by Ginger Voight

Created on: April 03, 2008

I saw Stranger Than Fiction within a week or two of its release because it looked absolutely brilliant. Though it didn't do as well as I had hoped (some likened it to a Charlie Kaufman ripoff), I still enjoyed it very much.

I was excited to find the screenplay online.

In short, the story is about Harold Crick, an ordinary fellow leading a painfully mundane existence until his life is interrupted by an invasive, unwanted and foreboding narrator with an English accent and a dry wit.

In other words, it's quirky and different and amusing. Just my kind of movie.

The screenplay was written out of the standard screenplay format, which was a little disconcerting at the beginning but the standard of writing soon made me forget I was even reading a script at all. It allowed me to get sucked into the story, and I was even able to remove myself from the movie I had seen.

(Although Dustin Hoffman's portrayal as Professor Hilbert far surpassed what was on the page - another indicator of just how amazing an actor he is.)

In fact, I think I connected more emotionally with the screenplay than I did the movie. I'm still in tears.

Despite the Charlie Kaufman comparison, there is no comparison with their writing style. Charlie is a bit more heavy handed and produces a much denser script.

The most invasive part of the Stranger Than Fiction, aside from the wonky formatting, was how the writer kept referring to music on a CD I suppose came with the script. I've always wanted to do that, but I can see how it would get in the way of the story.

Not much, mind you, but I think we as writers connect more with the music we use to inspire us than the reader might. It's a risk.

But it's really my only complaint with the script.

My complaint with the movie was how the Hollywood Ending felt tacked on, like they tried to be different but backed off. In reading the script, however, it now makes sense.

And it's a beautiful story. A story about how we live our life when we no longer take time for granted. We'd learn how to play the guitar, tell that person we're attracted to how we really feel, actually stop to feel the sun on our face instead of fight schedules and curse deadlines and delays.

It spoke to me, I guess.

I really enjoyed Zach Helm's writing style. It was different, offbeat, some might say intrusive, but I found it entertaining. Like his narrator Kay, he used wit to tell his story and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I say you could read this first and lose nothing from watching the movie afterwards. It didn't need the film to flesh out and maximize the impact.

For that... I give an enthusiastic *.

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