Stranger Than Fiction, the 2006 congenial romp through the existentiæ of mortality, includes this knowing payphone scene, which dips into the faded behavior of trying to find a working payphone when you really, really need one.
Office phones don't work. Cell phone signal is down. Harold Crick (played by Will Ferrell) needs to make a phone call. Wot to do?
Some funny payphone stuff in this. He can't use the first one on account of it being monopolized by a payphone hog. I remember those days. Another phone has no dial tone. The next phone's handset was "splattered with a fresh batch of mucous." Last one's the charm. The headgames begin.
Are those payphones real, or props? They don't look too terribly fake to me, with their 35¢ local call fare.
And also, great to hear the sound of Emma Thompson pounding out some text on an IBM Selectric typewriter.
This was a far more engaging and thought-provoking film than I would have expected of a Will Ferrell flick.
