Deconstructing Harry
Successful author Harry Block has been routinely mining his real life for material. After his latest divorce, he's been dating a young fan of his work - who just left him. Now he has to deal with an upcoming trip to his alma mater, and some of his characters start checking up on him in real life. A pretty poignant case of Family-Unfriendly Aesop follows.
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"Who are you?" |
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Tropes used in Deconstructing Harry include:
- A Chat With Satan:
- Actor Allusion: Judy Davis' character (Lucy) is dealing with a broken marriage and being jilted for a younger woman; the same fate she suffered in Allen's Husbands and Wives a few years earlier.
- Affably Evil: the Devil.
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"To Evil! It keeps things hummin'." |
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- Author Avatar: To some degreee, each and every main character from Harry's stories resembles him.
- Brick Joke: One of Harry's (perhaps unfinished) short stories deals with an actor (Mel) going out of focus as he's shooting what appears to be a TV commercial. Later on, the same thing happens to Harry, in lieu of a panic attack.
- The Cameo: Robin Williams as the out-of-focus actor, Tobey Maguire as a young Author Avatar,
- Canon Sue: In-universe: "Ken", the main character in Harry's last novel, comes off as a charming, laidback guy, all too happy to explain what went wrong in Harry's life. He's right every time.
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Harry: "How do you know so much?" |
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- Critical Psychoanalysis Failure: Joan might have needed a lot of help after being cheated on with one of her patients and getting divorced; we know she didn't take it well.
- Death By Childbirth: Happened to Harry's mom; his father never quite forgave him for that.
- Family-Unfriendly Aesop: Whatever it is.
- Functional Addict: Harry sees himself as one, as far as booze and anti-anxiety pills are concerned. Other characters don't agree.
- The Fundamentalist: Played with, twice:
- In one of Harry's stories, this is the reason his marriage to his former psychoanalyst failed: after the birth of their son, she rediscovered her Jewish roots, became obsessed with faith and tradition, and ended up leaving Harry for a dashing Israeli patient. In real life, though, Harry cheated on Joan with one of her patients.
- Then there's Bert, Harry's brother-in-law; an observant Jew who Harry despises to the point of becoming estranged from his sister. They later briefly reconnect.
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Paul Giamatti pops up near the end as a Lit professor; there's also a 5-second glimpse into Sydney Bristow before she became an agent.
- High Class Call Girl: The Asian prostitute in one of the stories-within-a-story.
- Hollywood Atheist: Mostly played for laughs, of the smug variety.
- Hooker With a Heart of Gold: Cookie.
- Ironic Hell
- The Lancer: Larry.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Borrow a sick friend's apartment, pretend it's your bachelor pad, use his name to introduce yourself to a High Class Call Girl... hey, that's The Grim Reaper at the door. And he won't believe you're not the guy.
- May-December Romance: Applied twice. Fay, Harry's last girlfriend, left him for Larry, who's older than her as well: the key difference here is Larry's positive outlook on life. They're married by the end of the movie.
- Meaningful Name: Harry Block, although Writers Block is just a symptom of his depression.
- Morality Pet: Played with. Harry's very fond of his young son Hilliard, who he enjoys spending time with; too bad all his life lessons to the kid are variations on Good Is Boring.
- Muse Abuse:
- Pygmalion Plot: Seems to have played a major role in Harry and Fay's romantic relationship; he considered her "a fan, then a pupil", but in the end he fell in love and she didn't truly reciprocate his feelings.
- Show Within a Show: Harry's stories within the film - and then The Reveal that the entire movie is the new story by Harry about himself.
- The Shrink: Joan and her fictional counterpart.
- Sidekick: Harry's friend and colleague Richard.
- Unproblematic Prostitution: Played with: Cookie comes off as a self-assured, reasonably content sex worker, who acceps Harry's offer of money in exchange for accompanying him to his old college even if she met him a couple hours before (and therefore has no idea whether he could posit a danger to her). She's also treated far more nicely than any other female character in-universe.
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Harry: "Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing. Waitressing's gotta be the worst fucking job in the world." |
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- Villainous BSOD: Once the group arrive at Harry's alma mater, they find out his friend Richard - who they thought was simply dozing off - has died in his sleep, presumably of a heart attack; Harry panics and briefly goes out of focus.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Happens at least twice, with characters from Harry's stories ("Ken" and "Helen", the latter being a mix between his ex-wife and his sister) lecturing him on the mistakes he made in his personal life.
- Write Who You Know: With almost no exception, Harry's characters are thinly-veiled versions of people he knows; considering in real life he's a bit of a Magnificent Bastard, every time he's got a new novel out, at least one of his personal relationships goes very sour.
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"And of course there's Jane, or, as you pathetically disguised her... Janet." |
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- Even he occasionally can't tell the difference between real life and fiction.
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Lucy: "Oh big fucking deal, you gave her large breasts!" |
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- Your Cheating Heart: In his own words, Harry's cheated on each and every one of his wives.