TwitView: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”; Ben Stiller stars and directs an imaginative movie that when focused in life works well, and when showcasing the fantastical detracts from the story. Grade: 3 out of 5
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is an interesting look into human life that is advertised as a comedy yet really is more of a drama with comical moments. Ben Stiller stars and directs Mitty, a movie about a man that really has no life except for taking care of his sister, his mom, and doing his job and no time to have a life. At the start you are shown that Walter has an active imagination that he frequents often while managing his day in and out.
It’s sad when you look at Walter and see that he is writing checks to take care of his sister who is just flighty, his mom who is moving on with her life years after her husband passed away, and doing his job as he is the negative asset manager for Life Magazine. It’s this job where he meets Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig in a non-comedic role) whom he has a crush on and is trying to get closer to her. Walter runs into issues at work when Time and Life Magazine are both being shut down and moved into the new digital media millennium so jobs are being downsized by Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott) and his management team. During this downsizing, both Walter and the Management Team receive a letter from famous photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) regarding a piece of film that contains what he thinks is the cover to the final issue of Life. The problem is that Walter can’t seem to locate this piece of film with the last real that Sean sent to them for publishing. And this is where Walter’s journey beings.
Walter has to hunt for Sean to locate the missing film and it’s here that Cheryl helps him with putting the pieces together to start this process. Before this, Walter was very down-trodden in life and has had no life experiences. His eHarmony profile had nothing listed about him and the only reason he joined was to try and connect with Cheryl. When talking to Todd Maher (the always funny Patton Oswalt) at eHarmony’s customer service, Todd tries to help Walter in building his life via his profile to make things appear better. With Cheryl’s help, Walter’s life starts to move forward and he gains experience in searching for O’Connell as he travels to Greenland, Iceland, and the mountains of Afghanistan. During his travels, Todd calls to reflect on Walter’s life/profile and learns that Walter’s world is growing. It’s also during this time that he starts to grow closer to Cheryl.
The real world aspects of Walter Mitty are amazing. The movie shows that anyone can grow from being a no-one and stop hiding behind work (and for some, technology) to live life and see what the world has to offer – no matter how big your world is. It’s the fantasy elements when Walter is day-dreaming that really take the plot and shove it to the side so we can see the “fake” world that Walter is living in. I get why this is done as we have to learn about Walter and his day-dreams and how the affect his real world. I just thought it was too IN YOUR FACE when it was done…until a sequence in Greenland where Walter needs courage to take the leap and leave his comfort zone…and that day-dream of Cheryl singing Major Time really helped Walter move forward. And it’s this one day-dream that sold the movie to me in a way that the earlier day-dreams had taken me out of the movie. It also allows the journey and the real theme to shine. Walter’s journeys are amazing to watch as he grows from being down-trodden to someone that finally saw what Sean O’Connell saw – the wold in a moment that you just want to enjoy.
This isn’t a comedy in lots of laugh out loud situations. The comedy comes from the dialogue and Patton Oswalt (he obviously punched up the script on these scenes). Kristen Wiig is great in a serious role and in an odd way, it was great seeing her not be “the funny one”.
Rated PG with a 114 minute run time, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a unique Drama/Comedy that will make you think. Grade 3 out of 5 stars.