Thanks!

Stranger Than Fiction. This movie I can watch over and over and get something new out of it every time. So many people I know have never heard of much less watched it. I don’t get the lack of enthusiasm for something I love so much. 

Maggie Gyllenhaal (aka my husband’s FA-vorite actress) plays Ana Pascal, and a serious, shy, and charmingly un-funny Will Farrell plays IRS agent Harold Crick. Harold has been assigned the task to audit Ana’s business. She’s a baker. Her business is a bakery.

Ana and Harold’s relationship starts out a bit shaky owing to the nature of why they’re in each other’s lives. In front of her customers, Ana caustically and loudly tells Harold to “Get bent, Tax Man.” She is greatly troubled by the way the government spends a portion of her taxes. She has refused over the years to pay that same portion of her taxes. This greatly troubles the IRS.

On the first day of the audit, Ana dumps on the table in front of Harold a crumpled mess of years of receipts and paperwork. After spending the day methodically going through the mess, Harold finishes up and starts to leave the bakery. Ana offers him a “warm and gooey, fresh out-of-the-oven” cookie. A peace offering of sorts.

Harold rejects the cookies and tells her government officials aren’t allowed to accept gifts, and he offers to pay for them. Suddenly, in that moment, he realizes what he’s done.

He blew it.

The cookies weren’t a bribe. They were a gift. A sweet, warm, and gooey, fresh out-of-the-oven gift.

The look on Ana’s face. Harold knows there is nothing he can do to make it right.

Until later.

It’s the thought that counts, right?

When my youngest son was in college, he heard the phrase “It’s the thought that counts.” Brilliant! All he had to do was think of a gift, tell the person what he was “giving,” and, well, it counted! What a money saver!

Good luck being thanked after that.

In the late 70s, singer Susan Anton performed on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. After she sat down on the couch next to Johnny’s desk, he told her, “You look lovely tonight.” She looked him straight in the eye and said, “Thank you.” She then told him a story when she met him at a party years before. He didn’t know who she was, but she certainly knew of him. Johnny paid her a polite compliment that Susan said she immediately dismissed out of hand.

Johnny told her something she said she never forgot: When she’s complimented she needs to say only, “Thank you.” He explained a compliment is a gift. A gift that is lessened when the person doesn’t receive it in the spirit it’s given. Dismissing the compliment is an insult to the giver.

Try an experiment. Compliment a woman’s hair or shoes or whatever. See if she says something like, “Ugh. My hair? It’s such a hot mess today. I need to get it cut; cover the roots.” “These?!? I got them at Walmart. On clearance.”

Continue the experiment. Compliment a man about something. More likely than not he’ll simply thank you.

Just an experiment. No judgment. We can explore some sort of Venus-Mars analysis for another time.

Once you see a compliment as a gift, you’ll realize saying “thank you” is the best response. Anything other than that and you’ve diminished what lovingly has been offered to you. Are you insinuating the person who liked something about you has no taste and is a dope? Kinda. Sorta.

You’re never too old for space camp, dude.

Back to the movie. A strange (movie title allusion!) turn of events brings Harold to believe his life is going to end. And soon. He begins the mission to live the life he had always wanted, which includes giving gifts to himself and to those he loves. He gave his co-worker and temporary roommate, Dave, the gift of going to space camp because Harold had asked Dave what he would do if he knew he was going to die. Dave said, “I’d go to space camp . . . I’ve always wanted to go since I was 9.” When Harold asked if he thought he might be too old to go to space camp, Dave answered, “You’re never too old to go to space camp, dude.”

Making it right.

In an attempt to make amends, Harold gives Ana flours. Flours. Get it? Flours. This movie! He also shyly and courageously gives her a gift of playing the guitar and singing. She in turn offers Harold a nothing-short-of-memorable thank you. Really. Go watch the movie. It’s got to be streaming somewhere.