For a comedy film, Stranger Than Fiction certainly struck a deeper emotional chord than its predecessors in the genre. Harold Crick, the protagonist, went about his monotonous life for years, unquestioning the amount of action he could potentially pack into each moment — that is, until the day he started hearing “the narrator.” Through an unconventional turn of events, Harold evolves, along with the other characters and the narrative structure of the film. Harold became a completely different man by taking risks and stepping outside the mundane routine he called “life,” even though he was somewhat forced to do so by the impeding narrator. Various scenes in Stranger Than Fiction contributed to this evolution, whether they were found in transparent examples or subtle…show more content… Ordinarily, Harold would brush each of his teeth up and down, back and forth 76 times, but this particular instance was different: Harold stopped counting how many times his toothbrush scraped his teeth, and brushed without regard to his normal technique. As unimportant as this event may seem, it is representative of a life-changing attitude that Harold adopted; he realized that he needed to start actually living life to prepare for his predicted tragic death. The new, carefree manner in which Harold brushed his teeth paralleled his new, carefree outlook on life — Harold went after his crush Anna Pascal, he took vacation time off of work, he plays guitar, etc. This scene is essential to the development of the central theme because it exhibits a recognizable shift in perspective. It is so easy to get stuck in a daily routine, conversely making it difficult to realize whether it is a positive or negative matter. Everybody needs to brush their teeth differently once in a while, so to say, to distinguish the difference between actually living, or just going through the
