K-SCORE: 96
Director: Ben Stiller
Based on: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber
Starring: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Shirley Maclaine, Adam Scott, Sean Penn, Kathryn Hahn
“breaking free of his loneliness and the sense that he’s insignificant”
Spoiler Level: Minor
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is the kind of film that makes me wonder how some movies receive such high critical acclaim and others that are so clearly well-made and beautiful fly under the radar. It’s spectacular, easily Ben Stiller’s best work both as an actor and a director. (Zoolander is perhaps more enjoyable that first time around, especially if you’re in an immature mood, but this movie is altogether more lovely and they aren’t easily compared anyway.)
“This movie finds a wonderful balance between extremes, knowing when and how to be funny and when and how to be serious.”
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty doesn’t fall entirely into one genre, which is a tremendous asset for the recreation of everyday life. Modern comedies are far too absurdist, feeling compelled to make everything a joke and therefore losing that grounding that actually keeps things funny. Many modern dramas suffer from being humorless, never finding a happy moment to play counterpoint to the suffering, thus turning the whole journey into a trudge through misery. This movie finds a wonderful balance between extremes, knowing when and how to be funny and when and how to be serious. There are outlandish jokes (clearly defined as existing within Walter’s mind) about Benjamin Button’s disease and Icelandic karaoke singers. Walter's tale is the perfect percentage of adventurous and mundane, which is crucial because the narrative hinges on Walter being able to both escape and accept his everyday life. At times he's just riding in the elevator in his office building, getting into disagreements with his boss, or he's hanging out with his mother and sister. Other times he flees an erupting volcano and survives a shark attack. Those moments are satisfyingly realistic compared to his daydreaming Matrix fight with his boss or when he saves a three-legged dog from a burning building, so it's all kind of funny. And yet it’s the dramatic elements that strike the hardest, which, in a narrative that’s working, is exactly how it should be. Walter breaking free of his loneliness and the sense that he’s insignificant comes because of his active effort to push for something better in his life.
All of the pieces of the film coalesce wonderfully. No character feels incomplete or irrelevant - they’re just not the focus. Each has an important role in Walter’s world. And, with the exception of the Life magazine new boss, no character is particularly villainous. It’s not really about conquering obstacles set up by human adversaries, so much as finding a way not to drown in the enormity of the world, not to become boring, not to become something you didn’t want to be. In order to do that, Walter has to go on a little adventure, and the last negative for the last printed issue of the magazine is just a catalyst. Everything is well-acted. No one but Walter completely understands what he’s going through, and that’s fine because his mother, sister, work-idol, Todd from eHarmony, and love interest all understand pieces and all help him feel less alone. I can’t remember liking a character Sean Penn played before, let alone liking one as much as I liked the photojournalist O’Connell.
Visually, the movie is a delight, getting mixed shots of New York City, The Icelandic countryside, and The Himalayas. The visuals aren’t as a good as the music though. The Of Monsters and Men soundtrack is great and stuck this film in my head from when I first saw the trailer to long after the credits rolled.
So many people have jobs that either seem boring or are boring, and so many people exist in the shadows of tall buildings, giant personalities, and events of global significance. It’s easy to feel small, to feel like you don’t matter, to feel like not many people would bother to hear what you have to say even if you spoke up or read what you write, even if you posted it online. My theory is that narratives about that feeling frighten people; they’re not things people want to embrace because they hit too close to home. Of course that makes them among the most important of stories to tell. That’s my guess as to why The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was largely ignored by film critics, Hollywood, and the wider media. In a way, it’s scary. Yet what Ben Stiller and James Thurber created is also hopeful and beautiful, and it’s why this will be a film that lasts; it’s why this is a film that I and many others will want to rewatch periodically for decades to come.