Movie Reviews for Writers: A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Wow. This one was a bizarre film. But, let's face it, that's exactly what we've been taught to expect from Simon Pegg. In this flick, Pegg plays a children's storybook writer turned crime writer who is also a paranoiac whose research causes him to see Victorian serial killers in every shadow. 

Of course, this one is filled with gags, such as Pegg gluing a knife to his hand, burning his underwear and socks in the oven, diving around in his flat in his tighty whiteys, etc. 

But in the midst of all that zaniness, there are quite a few things to look at that concern the writing life. 

The first is that it's easy to get pigeonholed in the publishing business. At one point, when his agent asks him for another Harold the Hedgehog book that she could sell easily, he tells her (expletives deleted here) that Harold is dead. He really wants to move beyond Harold and his other cute storybook characters and tell a story with (in his mind) more substance, more to say. 

Of course, he continues to be haunted by Harold among his Victorian killer visions and his attempts to come to terms with his own abandonment as a child. Ultimately, he learns that Harold still has a lot to say to him and to his life as a writer. 

Next, he learns that while research is incredibly helpful and a much-needed skill for authors, it can also be debilitating and a huge stop sign in the middle of the actual writing. Of course, not all of us will internalize our research into waking nightmares of Victorian murderers, but I'm sure we've all experienced that moment when research sends is down the rabbit holes of click, then click, then click, then "Wait! What the hell was I looking for in the first place, and how did I end up learning about the chemical symbols for the fibers in socks from the 1920s?" 

Research is dangerous, especially to folks who are easily distracted by new possible story ideas and factoids that might, maybe, possibly, off-chance make it either into a story or even create a new story from scratch later. 

The last point made, and perhaps the one the movie puts the most time into driving home to viewers is that while we often want to fragment ourselves into children's writer or crime fiction writer (or in my case horror writer or pulp writer or superhero writer or literary writer) the truth is that we need to integrate all those things. I won't reveal the ending because it's truly inspired the way Pegg's "selves" work together to... Well, you'll just have to see. It's awesome. 

But at any rate, don't pit one writing self inside you against another. Integrate, baby.