Everybody knows that your life is a story. But what if a story was your life? And you
can even change the tragic ending of it? This is Movie Shortens. Follow us today to a very
special American fantasy movie called: Stranger Than Fiction 2006. Be aware: there are spoilers!
The story opens with a narrator's voice introducing our main character, Harold Crick and his wristwatch.
Harold has an obsession with numbers and calculations. He counts the number of times he brushes each
of his 32 teeth, the number of steps to the bus stop, and the seconds in his coffee break.
He works as an IRS auditor where his obsession with numbers makes him very good at his job,
his co-workers often ask for help solving math questions.
One morning this all changes when Harold hears a female voice from nowhere describing his
actions precisely. He appears concerned and questions the voice and who it may be, but
the voice simply continues to narrate his life as he leaves for work. On his journey
he questions a lady on the street, asking if they can also hear the voice, but it becomes
obvious that it is only him.
Later at work he is approached by his friend Dave. Harold, looking startled, tells Dave
that he thinks he’s being followed by a female voice, he starts ﬁling documents
to see if Dave will hear her narration, but again he realises that he is alone in this
mystery.
That afternoon, Harold arrives at a bakery to audit the owner, Pacal, for unpaid tax
bills. Pascal shows frustration at the tax system, explaining that she intentionally
misses taxes as she does not agree with how they are spent. Harold hears the voice again,
this time narrating his secret attraction to Pascal, which makes Harold ﬂustered,
forcing him to leave. He stops outside the shop and screams out loud to send the voice
away, leaving him alone.
We then see a mysterious woman standing atop a building, smoking a cigarette as she looks
down. She watches as a boy nearly hits a man with his bike. The man, who is watering plants
by the road, accidentally sprays water at the woman next to him. The mysterious woman
puts out her cigarette and falls off the building; she then jumps awake in her office with her
hands out in front, seemingly after a daydream. This woman is introduced as Karen Eiffel,
a famous ﬁction writer.
While reluctant to receive help, Eiffel explains to her assistant, Penny, that she has writer’s
block. Eiffel asks Penny if she has ever thought about jumping off a building. Penny says no,
and Eiffel says she will never be able to help her kill her main character, Harold Crick.
This establishes Eiffel as the female voice who has been narrating Harold's life. And
Harold turns out to be the main character of her struggling novel, and Harold’s character
will soon die. Penny states she will gladly help kill Harold Crick.
Later, Harold is seen waiting at the bus stop. His watch begins to go crazy as the baker
walks past, before stopping completely. He asks for the time and resets it, Eiffel narrates
that this action will lead to his imminent death. Hearing this, Harold becomes stressed
and frustrated, shouting “When?, and Why?”.
Later, Harold arrives home and begins to act erratically in an attempt to make the voice
come back, but has no luck. Later, he visits a psychiatrist, she assumes he has schizophrenia,
but he denies it. Harold argues that he’s a character in his own life, in a story and
he must avoid impending death. The psychiatrist advises him to see a literary expert instead.
The next day, Harold then turns to literary professor, Jules Hilbert. Jules initially
dismisses Harold but after hearing Harold quote the voice saying “little did he know”
- a classic literary expression - he agrees to meet him again in an attempt to change
his fate.
Later he rides the bus home, bumping into Pascal. Harold expresses his apologies for
auditing her and after some small talk they both leave smiling. At the same time, Eiffel
is distressed, and appears to be driving through the rain over a bridge. As a boy on his bike
turns into the road she swerves over the edge and into the river below. Suddenly, Eiffel
and Penny are watching the bridge from the rainy bank. They are there only to imagine
a car accident, in order to consider ways to kill off Harold.
Meanwhile, Harold goes back to Jules’ office. Jules explains that stories are either comedies
or tragedies, and that Harold should determine which he is in. Shortly after, Harold goes
to the bakery, and begins making jokes about auditing, marking a tally in his pad under
‘comedy’. He then discusses the percentage she owes and after she ignores, makes a tally
under ‘tragedy’. After she asks about the notepad, he puts it away quickly and they
go upstairs to work on her tax forms. He attempts to help her and ask questions about the forms
but is met with silence, forcing him to add several tallies under ‘tragedy’. His story
appears to be tragic.
Before he leaves she asks him if he wants a homemade cookie, which Harold has never
tried. They discuss her dropping out from law school to better the world through baking.
She tries to give him the cookies to take home, but he says he is unable to accept gifts
as her auditor. He offers to buy them before being told to leave. Harold makes another
tally under tragedy.
Later, Jules explains that Harold may be perpetuating his story with his usual actions and that
he should try to do nothing and end the course. He tells him to avoid work, the bus, anything
that moves the story forward. The next day Harold lays on the sofa, ignoring work and
the ringing phone, even urinating into a bottle to change his routine. Then, a digger crashes
through the wall of his apartment - the builders apparently having been told to demolish the
building. Harold meets Jules to discuss, and Jules tells Harold that he is not in control
of his fate and to live his life as he wants, implying that he cannot help him anymore.
Frustrated, Harold can't accept this and strives to make a change. Harold’s workmate, Dave,
offers him a room to stay in. At dinner, he asks Dave what he would do if he knew he was
going to die. Dave says he would go to space camp.
The next morning, Harold looks into the mirror and says “space camp”, he is ready to
live his version of this dream. He later ﬁnds himself in a guitar shop, scanning the room
of the guitars as the narrator explains the different personalities the guitars reﬂect.
Finally a used, but classy, guitar catches his eye, and the narrator again explains that
this guitar is a ‘match’. That afternoon he sits awkwardly strumming the guitar, as
the narrator emphasizes his growth through change. He no longer eats alone, counts brushes,
wears ties. He begins to live his life and do the things that scared him before.
Late in the evening Harold runs to catch Pascal on the street. He brings a box of different
baking flour. She offers to pay for them and sees the sweet side of his gesture. He exclaims
that he wants her, and as she questions the legality of the situation he simply tells
her he doesn’t care. After walking her home she extends her attraction to him also and
invites him up to her apartment.
Harold tells her about his new guitar and his desire to learn. He refuses to play, but
as she walks away he begins to play a song, stopping Pascal in her tracks. She ﬁnally
leaps and kisses him before the song ﬁnishes, stating she wants him too. As they lay in
bed the narrator explains his thoughts, that he realized the moment in the story - she
was falling in love with him.
Harold runs to Jules office the next day and tells him what happened. Jules had made a
list of 7 potential authors of his story, however it is an interview on TV that catches
Harold’s eye. He realizes that this woman, Karen Eiffel, is the voice he hears. Jules
disagrees, stating that the interview is 10 years old, and that her books are tragic tales
of death, but Harold is sure.
Undeterred, he looks in her old book and ﬁnds a publishing company's address, then rushes
outside.
Elsewhere, Eiffel is out buying cigarettes. An apple rolls onto the road, which inspires
her. She later explains to Penny that she has discovered the perfect way to kill Harold.
Now at the publishers’, Harold tries to locate Eiffel, explaining his situation to
the receptionist, but has no luck. He runs back to his office and gathers information
from his audit ﬁles to locate Eiffel’s phone number. With no success, he then rushes
to the nearest payphone to try to call, the whole time hearing the narration of his own
actions.
At Eiffel’s studio, she is typing the end of her story. “The phone rang,” she types.
Her phone then rings. She ignores the phone twice, but after typing it again, rushes to
answer the third call, aware now that her typing is triggering it. Stunned to hear Harold
on the phone, she drops it in shock. Harold comes knocking on her door, both are shocked
to see each other but relieved that they are not crazy. Harold asks Eiffel to reconsider
killing him now that they have met, she stutters. He asks if she has already written the end.
She nervously replies it as an outline, as Penny enters, holding the pages. She suggests
that Harold reads it.
Harold then goes to see Jules, asking him to read the story as he is scared. Shortly
after, the little boy leaves home on his bike, and the woman who was sprayed by the hose,
gets into the bus she drives. Meanwhile, Jules is seen reading the book in his apartment.
The next day, Harold arrives at his office to ask about the book. Jules apologizes and
explains that the book is a masterpiece, and that it is no good unless Harold dies - he
will die anyway and the book will never be as poetic nor profound without the death.
On the bus home, Harold takes out the pages and begins to read. He stays on the bus for
a long time. Penny then enters Eiffel’s studio to ﬁnd her laying on the ground with
tears in her eyes. She asks Penny how many people she has killed, realizing that Harold
is just one of many loveable characters she has killed off.
By the evening, Harold has ﬁnished the book. Eiffel then exits her apartment, just as Harold
is getting off the bus. He walks up to her and tells her that he read the book and tells
her that there’s only one way it can end. Eiffel looks at him, confused, as he says
he loves the book and that she should ﬁnish it. He hands her the pages and walks away.
Later, Harold is at his office after hours. As he hears Eiffel narrate the end of the
story, Harold ﬁnishes his outstanding audits, makes some phone calls, and goes to Eiffel’s
for chocolate pudding. They sit on the sofa watching old movies. In bed later, Harold
tries to tell Pascal how she can deduct the baked goods she gives away from her taxes,
so she won’t go to prison.
The next morning he goes back to his apartment and sees the destroyed wall as his watch begins
to beep. At the same time, the woman is getting ready for work as a bus driver and the little
boy is waking up and getting on his bike. Harold ties his tie and gets ready for work,
whilst listening to the narration describe how his life had changed.
The narration explains that when Harold reset his watch all those weeks ago at the bus stop,
he had reset the watch to 3 minutes late, and that that changed the course of his destiny.
Harold arrives at 8:14 for the 8:17 bus. Pascal wakes up and calls for Harold, but he has
left. Just as the bus is coming, the young boy on the bicycle skids into the street,
and Harold rushes to help him. Saving the boy, he is hit by the bus, crashing onto the
road. Eiffel is ﬁnishing the book, lighting a cigarette in tears. She stops in the middle
of the sentence. Eiffel then goes to Jules’ office and gives him the pages of the novel;
she asks him to view the new ending after he says he has read the old one.
Meanwhile, Harold lies in a full body cast at the hospital, still alive. While he should
have died almost instantly, the doctor says, he miraculously survived because a shard of
metal from his watch obstructed the artery from bleeding. Pascal comes in and kisses
Harold.
As Jules ﬁnishes reading Eiffel’s revised ending, he expresses his disappointment, telling
her it's not the best, but it's ok. She accepts this and tells him she’ll revise the rest
of the book. When Jules wants to know why she changed it, Eiffel replies that it’s
a book about a man who doesn’t know he’s about to die and then dies, but if the man
does know he’s going to die and dies anyway, dies willingly, knowing he could stop it,
then…isn’t that the type of man you want to keep alive? A tragedy isn’t a tragedy
if it’s expected.
Back at the hospital Pascal feeds Harold a cookie as Eiffel narrates the revised ending.
As the novel comes to the end, Pascal draws a wristwatch on Harold’s cast.
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