Stranger than fiction

I saw this movie today. I don't know if it's a good movie or a bad movie. It's not about that. It certainly made me write about it.

Warning: If you have not watched this movie, don't read further. Go watch the movie and read this post later. You have been warned.

The movie creates an unusual plot, quite unlike anything that has been tried before (at least in my limited knowledge). The pinnacle of the story is the point where the professor (Dustin Hoffman) reads the ending and tells Harold that the end is worth dieing for. The speech that the professor gives to Harold, opens numerous possibilities in which the story can end. Not to mention, this is also the most dramatic point in the whole film. It creates lots of expectations from the finale.

Now I thought that the director/creator of the film lost his grip of the story after this pinnacle. When actually the fatal climactic accident happens in the movie, it doesn't live up to the expectations the professor created about it. It may be poetic, sad and heartbreaking as described, but it certainly is not worth dieing for. This is where the film looses the chance of being extra-ordinary.
..... But wait I haven't finished yet.

Now let's assume that the ending of the story was something really fascinating and worth dieing. (That's a detail after all - or is it). So in the movie, the author of the story decides to sacrifice this fascinating ending of the story for a mundane one, for saving the life of a good soul - a moral decision with fitting justification.

What baffles me is the recursive nature of this movie. Let's say what I said initially is true - that the movie goes downslope after creating lot of anticipation. So the author inside the movie settled for a mundane ending for moral reasons. Is that the same reason, the director of the movie also decided to make a simple easy ending? Was this recursion intended by the creator of the movie? Because if it is, then that's really amazing - the effect is created by coming out of the movie (I hope you understand what I mean by this sentence, I can't explain it clearer).

... Anyway if I could work on this art form, I would try to think of more intriguing ending for this movie than the traditional ending it has. As I said, the plot reaches a hilltop from where it can take numerous paths to conclusion. Sadly it takes the regular bitten road down the hill.