There is Always the Possibility of a Spoiler in Something I Write about Movies

After shrimp salad and a pilsner and before coffee cake and iced coffee, Hopkins suggested Stranger than Fiction, which I think she's watched a million times and was itching to watch again. It was, I must say delightful. In addition, she pulled from her closet the perfect dress for me to wear to a wedding next Sunday (at this wedding, the bride, a political theorist, wants to have read Aristophanes' speech from the Symposium, which I think is delightful [it's the one where people are cut in half and go around seeking their other half]).

Stranger than Fiction was, as I say, delightful. What's not to love? There's Maggie G. (her last name seems hard to spell)'s nose (which I don't actually prefer), her brightly colored tattooed arm(/s?) (this makes me understand why men fall hard for libertarian chicks--something I never was clever enough to fake libertarianism to cash in on), Emma Thompson (I want to be Emma Thompson, mostly as she is in Sense and Sensibility, but also in Henry V and Much Ado about Nothing; on further reflection, this list is not complete), Harold's endearing, socially awkward honesty, etc.

And the themes!--the relationship between fiction and reality (fiction is clearly subordinate, and yet it helps Harold figure out both the weird existence of his own personal narrator as well as what action would be fitting for him), action v. passivity (Harold's development is from someone who is acted upon to someone who acts--he gets in front of the narrator toward the end of the film), the relationship between comedy and tragedy, and the high place of baking in the film (how horrible that Harold's mother didn't bake!).