Ripe for plot development, screenwriter Zach Helms and director Marc Forster choose instead to forgo any attempt at completeness to craft a naggingly vulnerable yet wholly enjoyable film. (To be fair, I’ve heard the film was hurriedly edited for release.) Is Harold Crick a fictional character, or is he simply a real person unexpectedly caught in an author’s story? If the former, are those who interact with him on a daily basis real…and if so, how is Harold’s pre-novel relationship with them explained? If Harold is an unfortunate member of reality, then in theory couldn’t I write a novel about Paris Hilton disappearing and seconds later hear about just that happening?
Not that our empathy towards Harold Crick would lessen any should his existence be established—we all see he’s alive, capable of love and sadness. He has dreams, fluxes in attitudes, and so on. He’s even likable. But the finale, in which Karen Eiffel must decide Harold’s fate, becomes convoluted when her emotions take hold. (Perhaps it would’ve been more appropriate for Eiffel to research how many people her creativity has actually killed, thus making distinctions between fiction and reality, as well as the odd Creator-Creation relationship that lurks beneath Helms’ storyline.)
Emma Thompson is a great actress who embodies the ascetic Karen Eiffel with a depressed fierceness—reclusiveness, that eternal sign of genius—while overshadowing Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman. Will Ferrell succeeds mainly because he’s so normal-looking, which adds legitimacy to his character’s relationship with Anna (Maggie Gyllenhaal). But they couldn’t give Linda Hunt a single good line?
by Adam Balz | Source: Sony Pictures 35MM Print
27 Nov 2006 10:59 AM | Submit Comment
