Y Not I

Sometimes there is a movie that looks good enough from the trailers that you want to see it, but once it arrives from your favorite DVD rental service it just sits there waiting for you to pick it up and watch it. However, for one reason or another, it gets passed by many times for other movies. Finally you either get the chance to sit down and watch it or it just goes back unwatched. Stranger Than Fiction is one such movie for me, and I was glad it was one that I did make the time for and not send it back unwatched. More than just a nice story, to me it spoke some very insightful and perhaps unintended messages about our Messiah. However to tell you about them I will have to spoil the movie. So read no further if you have not seen the movie and have an interest in seeing it. If you have saw the movie or have absolutely no interest in seeing it then feel free to click and read my thoughts on this movie.

To recap it is the story of Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell. Harold is an IRS auditor, a very number oriented man, who appears to have little of a real life outside of counting brush strokes when brushing teeth or steps to the bus stop. One day while counting and brushing his teeth he hears the voice of a woman, who appears to be narrating what he is doing. He cannot communicate with the voice and the voice starts to distract him and affect his everyday life. Unbeknownst to him is that the voice belong to author Karen Eiffel, played by Emma Thompson, who is writing her latest tragedy and Harold is the main character. She, however has writers block and cannot figure out how to kill off poor Harold. Harold hears one day that he is going to die very soon, and because the voice has always been very accurate, he is fearful of this latest development. Basically he goes to literary professor Jules Hilbert, played by Dustin Hoffman for help and eventually Professor Hilbert decides to help. There is also the story of Harold’s love interest, a baker that he is auditing, Ana Pascal , played by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Eventually Karen Eiffel figures out a way to kill off Harold and Harold figures out that the voice belongs to Karen Eiffel and he finds her to ask that she not kill him. He realizes that she has basically killed him off already although it has not been typed up yet. She gives Harold the book manuscript to read through, which he cannot do at first and has Profess Hilbert read it first. The Professor tells him that the book is a masterpiece and there is no way that it should be changed and tries to convince Harold that he should accept this fate. Harold reads through the book and eventually agrees, returning it to Karen Eiffel and telling her that he is fine with his story and his death.

Here is where it gets interesting for me. Harold knows the story and knows how he will die and he accepts the role presented to him. And how will he die? By saving a young boy on a bicycle from an oncoming bus, getting hit by the bus himself. So Harold has agreed to die to save the life of another, one he did not even know. How interesting and how much like Yeshua. Yeshua knew the end of his earthly ministry and ultimately agreed to the end as written. In the movie, Karen Eiffel changed the end and had Harold live, because when someone comes along and agrees to die to save another, you don’t want that person to die, as she reasons. To Professor Hilbert the ending is not as good, but she is willing to live with an OK ending in this case.

For me it helped to better picture the wonderful work that was done by Messiah on the cross. He knew the end of the story and died for someone who was not a friend of His, but a sinner who was living a life against the ways of God. In this week as we approach Yom Kippur and thoughts of atonement are in the minds of Jews around the world, the act of the atonement provided by Yeshua was brought forth fresh to me by this movie. Harold Crick was no Messiah, but it is nice to see the ideals of dying for another rendered in a positive manner.

B”H