History Film / StrangerThanFiction

* AcceptableTargets:[[invoked]] Part of the test for whether Harold is in a comedy or a tragedy is if he has recently met anyone who hates him, and would want to kill him.
-->'''Harold''': I'm an [=IRS=] agent; ''everyone'' hates me.
-->'''Hilbert''': Have you met anyone recently who might loathe the very core of you?
-->'''Harold''': I just started auditing a woman who told me to get bent.
-->'''Hilbert''': That sounds like a comedy.
** [[InvokedTrope Invoked with the novel itself, as it's stated in the film that Eiffel began writing the book just after she had been audited]]

* OnlySaneEmployee: Karen Eiffel's publisher hires a "personal assistant" to make sure she finishes her new novel.

-->'''Harold''': I'm an [=IRS=] agent; ''everyone'' hates me.\\

'''Hilbert''': That sounds like a comedy.

-->--'''Karen Eiffel'''

* AmbiguousDisorder:
** Harold. He's extremely meticulous, a stickler for following rules, is very socially awkward, and he rigidly schedules his life around his wristwatch down to the second. He's also a whiz with numbers; he calculates a large sum in his head in moments when a co-worker asks it of him, Dr. Hilbert takes notice that he was counting the steps on a staircase and the tiles on the wall as they walked through the college, and the visual effects mentioned under DesignStudentsOrgasm are noted in the commentary to be Harold counting things he sees around him.
** Karen Eiffel is very unusual in the way she acts around others, sometimes coming off as aggressive and distant. She also takes time imagining deaths, usually imagining herself being the one who dies, and at one point asks a nurse at a hospital "where are the dying people" because she wanted a visual to help imagine Harold's death.

* GranolaGirl: Ana Pascal, our resident baker, is of the "hate TheMan" type.

''Stranger Than Fiction'' is a 2006 fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Creator/MarcForster, written by Zach Helm, and starring Creator/WillFerrell, Creator/EmmaThompson, Creator/MaggieGyllenhaal, Creator/DustinHoffman, and Creator/QueenLatifah.

Mundane IRS auditor Harold Crick (played by Creator/WillFerrell) is minding his own business, living his daily routine, when one day, he begins to hear a voice... the voice of an author. Her voice follows him everywhere, narrating his daily activities, much to his annoyance. After all, there's not much to narrate. Beyond going to work, brushing his teeth, and eating meals alone, nothing at all happens worth narrating. Until he hears one line that changes everything. "Little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death."

That one narration is enough to thrust Harold into action, eager to do anything it takes to avoid his death. Though told he's schizophrenic by the psychologist he sees, Harold refuses to believe such a diagnosis. Instead, he seeks out the foremost professor in literature, Dr. Jules Hilbert (played by Creator/DustinHoffman). Hilbert quizzes him extensively on the narrator, then sets Harold to figuring out whether he's in a comedy or tragedy. After all, in a comedy he'll get hitched, but in a tragedy he'll die.

At the same time, author Karen Eiffel (played by Creator/EmmaThompson) wrestles with severe writer's block. She's been working on her latest novel for quite some time, but is at a complete loss at how to kill off her protagonist... one Mr. Harold Crick.

-->-- '''[[spoiler:Karen Eiffel]]'''

* CharacterNarrator: Karen Eiffel narrates Harold's life, but she's also a character herself in his life. Both of them are initially unaware of this fact, Eiffel even moreso because she, as the writer ''writing'' the very scene, doesn't realize it is her that Harold is calling on the phone.

->This is a story about a man named Harold Crick and his wristwatch. Harold Crick was a man of infinite numbers, endless calculations, and remarkably few words. And his wristwatch said even less.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Karen Eiffel is very unusual in the way she acts around others, sometimes coming off as aggressive and distant. She also takes time imagining deaths, usually imagining herself being the one who dies, and at one point asks a nurse at a hospital "where are the dying people" because she wanted a visual to help imagine Harold's death. Harold as well; the visual effects mentioned under DesignStudentsOrgasm are noted in the commentary to be Harold's mental accounting for various items in the world. He also has difficulty socializing.

* CharacterDeath: As it turns out, [[spoiler:Karen was about to do this to Harold by writing her novel. Once she realizes this, she wonders if this was the same fate that befell all her other protagonists]].

* AmbiguousDisorder: Karen Eiffel is very unusual in the way she acts around others, sometimes coming off as aggressive and distant. She also takes time imagining deaths, usually imagining herself being the one who dies, and at one point asks a nurse at a hospital "where are the dying people" because she wanted a visual to help imagine Harold's death. Harold as well; the visual effects mentioned under DesignStudentsOrgasm are noted in the commentary to be Harold's mental accounting for various items in the world. That plus Harold's difficulty in socializing are meant to suggest that Harold is TheRainMan.

** Eiffel goes through one when she realizes Harold was real, and starts wondering if she really killed people with her previous books.

-->'''Harold''': I'm an [=IRS=] agent; ''everyone'' hates me.
-->'''Hilbert''': That sounds like a comedy.

* {{Narrator}} Karen Eiffel narrates Harold's life, but she's also a character herself in his life. Both of them are initially unaware of this fact, Eiffel even moreso because she, as the writer ''writing'' the very scene, doesn't realize it is her that Harold is calling on the phone.
** Until his apartment is wrecked, it is never established if he was being controlled by Eiffel's writing or if she was just narrating what he was doing at the time.

* {{Adorkable}}: It's implied that Ana finally starts falling for Harold because he's goofy and endearing, and it's pretty easy to see why.

Mundane IRS auditor Harold Crick (played by Creator/WillFerrell) was minding his own business, living his daily routine, when one day, he begins to hear a voice... the voice of an author. Her voice follows him everywhere, narrating his daily activities, much to his annoyance. After all, there's not much to narrate. Beyond going to work, brushing his teeth, and eating meals alone, nothing at all happens worth narrating. Until he hears one line that changes everything. "Little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death."

The film (released November 10th, 2006) also gives us the perspective of Karen Eiffel (played by Creator/EmmaThompson), an author currently suffering from severe writer's block. Apparently she's been working on this novel for quite some time, but is at a complete loss at how to kill off her protagonist... one Mr. Harold Crick.

* HeroicSacrifice: Harold discovers that his fate is to die [[spoiler:by pushing a child out of the way of a bus, taking his place and forming a DyingMomentOfAwesome for Eiffel's novel.]]
* IceCreamKoan: From the HR guy in Harold's office: "A tree doesn't... ''think'' it's a tree. It is a tree!" This is also part of Karen's ongoing narration: "Of course trees were trees. Harold knew trees were trees." Harold (thanks to the narrator) decides he hates the HR guy for this.
* ImagineSpot: Of the writer jumping from the tall building. We then cut back to her standing on a table.
%%% Is the importance of the haircut that Karen uses it as a conversation start?
%%%* ImportantHaircut: One of the first things Karen remarks on upon seeing Harold for the first time is...

* InformedAbility: Karen's writing ability. We only see (and hear) snippets of it--both Harold and Hilbert think the full manuscript is a brilliant masterpiece, but we only see quick snatches as they read through it, and only hear her narrate when it applies to Harold in her story.