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. 

Read more:

https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2021/06/movie-reviews-for-writers-fantastic.html