Watched: Stranger Than Fiction
- Not my first viewing, but probably my first since about 2007.
- The first thing you notice watching something like this is that Harold’s relationship with Ana really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny: she’s mostly a cipher, written as a slightly kooky love interest for the principal character. Maybe the feminist streak I’ve developed in the intervening years has made me wiser to this sort of thing but she just didn’t… fit.
- That said, this film passes the Bechdel test on multiple fronts. The interplay between Queen Latifah and Emma Thompson (who is still godlike in this film) is electric and brilliant, and that first moment on the roof is the most serene I’ve ever felt watching a film.
- So it’s not as good. Or rather, I’m better than I was, so it doesn’t seem as good. But this is still really fun to watch, and if you take it as a film about writing and concluding with a meaningful message, it holds a lot of value still. I think. I’ll probably think something else in another six years.
