Films about writers is probably a favourite genre - sub genre - of mine. Stories about writing stories has the possibility to go anywhere. Film about real writers have their own separate space but these picks are about writing or about writers of novels but not about real-life writers. Just to be clear.
Don't forget to check out what Wandering Through the Shelves picked, the blog that started Thursday Movie Picks.
Stranger Than Fiction
Said to be Will Ferrell’s Truman Show, it follows Harold Crick, a bland tax man who starts to hear his life be narrated. The narration spurs Harold to change his ways and to live life to the full. But once he discovers that the narrator is famous author Karen Eiffel, who is notorious for killing off all her main characters, Crick has to come to terms with death. I felt that the film was oversold to me. I thought it was going to be a great film that ‘had something profound to say’ especially as the cast was quite good, but it turned out too sentimental and had the same old message about making the most of life. The interesting part of the film was the dilemma for Karen Eiffel who has to decide whether she kills Crick or not.
Barton Fink
Sorry if I’ve used this film before but I cannot remember. Barton Fink (John Turturro), the surprising winner of 1991 Palm d’Or is about a New York playwright who wants to write about ‘the common man’ but is persuaded to write for a Hollywood studio. He lives at The Hotel Earl, whose motto is ‘For a day or a lifetime’ along with other single men. Hi neighbour is friendly but has a dark secret. Filled with symbolism and other mixed messages, paying homage to real writers and the Hollywood system and their treatment of screenwriters. The Coen’s present us with a deliciously genre twisted film that has co much more going on that a writer with writer’s block. the
World’s Greatest Dad
Honestly, I cannot remember how or why I saw this film. Robin William’s plays Lance, single middle aged father and school teacher. He has a horrible, below average academically son, Kyle, who is obsessed with porn. Lance is failed writer who has had his work continuously rejected by publishers but when Kyle dies accidentally from erotic asphyxiation, Lance covers it up as a suicide and writes a note. Soon the note gains attention giving Lance hope for his dream as a writer, but as this is a very dark comedy, things go wrong. You feel for Lance’s struggle, whether it’s his writing, his son’s death, the fact that his son was a terrible person when alive and with just trying to do better at work. Williams is brilliant in the film, but it makes me sad to think we won’t see him anymore.
