Stranger than Fiction

Summary 
In the movie Stranger than Fiction the main Character Harold Crick, once monotonous, boring, and repetitive, has his life turn upsidedown when he begins to hear an author inside his head narrating his life.
As Harold sees many therapists and psychiatrists in fear that he is going absolutley insane, he recognizes the voice in his head. It's blaring through his televesion set one evening and he discovers the extraordiarily accurate voice narrating his life is an esteemed author on a talk show that reveals to her audience her thoughts on how her character Harold Crick in her next book is going to die.
Harold has to find the narrator of his life and ultimately the author of his death before its too late and his future is published and printed on his grave.

In this film there are many well-defined Character Archetypes


The evil figure with an ultimately good heart: The author; Karen Eiffel, is such an incredible author of her books the characters become real people but sadly all die in the end. Karen does not purposefully TRY to kill the real life version of Harold Crick, but could be characterized as the evil figure because she is the source of conflict in Harold's life. After the unfortunate death of Harold after her book publishing she has a change in heart and from then on, all of her books did not end with a death scene.


The Temptress: is the young girl who works at a bakery that Harold Crick falls in love with. Through her bubbly and happy personality she brings life into Harold and teaches him how to really live, before he died.


The Mentor: Harold's psychiatrist acts as his mentor and gives him the answers to figuring out what is happening to him and how to find the author of his life. When everyone else thinks Harold is going crazy, his psychiatrist believes Harold and helps him change the end of his story.


Lastly


The Hero: Harold Crick is his own hero. Although in the end he decides to let the author publish her story, he became his own hero as he saved his own boring and monotonous lifestyle by making it meaningful before he died.




Many scenes from this film can be characterized into archetypes of Greek mythology.


Harold experiences the Initiation when he meets a beautiful girl in a bakery. For the first time in his life he has found something he is excited to live for. He discovers a life where he can live outside of his 50 brush strokes every morning, that he counts carefully, and the same red tie he wears to the work he takes a bus to, where he sits in the same seat every morning. He discovers the beauty of change and adventure. Harold shows signs of maturity as he begins to open up to these exciting changes in his life.


The Karen Eiffel experiences a moment of Death and Rebirth when Harold tells her to publish her book, meaning he is willing to die, for the life of the book. From then on she uses her literary talents for good and stops the tradition of killing the main character of every book she writes. Through Harold's character and courage she is inspired = death and rebirth of the author.


At the same time Karen is experiencing a rebirth of writing in her life she is also carrying with her an Unhealable Wound; looking back at all the best selling books she has written she also discovers it came with a cost. Not only did she kill Harold Crick, but her writing also put suffering in the lives of many other characters who were killed through the words punched from her typewriter. in the past.




Through colour scheme of each character portrayed a tone and mood set for the film.


Through out the story Harold Crick wears the same clothes every day but a different colored cartigan that is parrallel to the mood and tone of that scene




In one of the first scenes when Harold is counting his brush strokes as he brushes his teeth in the morning he is wearing a white t-shirt symbolizing his purity as he has not yet been exposed to change or tragedy in his life.


When he begins to hear the voice in his head, and become paranoid and depressed he is wearing blue which symbolizes coldness and darkness 


When Harold meets his creator he is dressed in red; symbolizing the compassion Karen has for her characters, for when she saw Harold in person for the first time she recognized every feature of him that was carefully crafted and formed. The colour red was also a foreshadowing of sacrifice that Harold will become for Karen's career.
Red can also imply excitement; this emotion is caused in the excitement at the thought of an author being able to meet their characters in person, and the suspense as you watch Karen and Harold meet each other for the first time.


These are just some examples of Stranger than Fiction that portray aspects of Greek Mythology, and have enhanced the already incredibly original plot written by Zach Helm, and directed by Marc Forster, it is definitely on the list of movies you must see if you haven't already.