The Secret Life of Walter Mitty doesn’t have much in common with the James Thurber short story that shares its title. It takes the main character’s name and his penchant for daydreaming, but pretty much disregards the rest, turning a story of a man trying to escape the drudgery of his marriage into the inspiring tale of a man who discovers himself through adventure. The film gets less interesting as it becomes more prescriptive, but it manages to retain a sense of sweetness that overcomes the predictability of its choices.
When we meet Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller), he is trying to work up the courage to send a message to his co-worker Cheryl (Kristen Wiig) through an online dating service. Walter is not the type to take risks, his only adventures taking place in his head. When he gets to work that day at Life Magazine, he is greeted with the news that the magazine has been bought out and is to be shut down. Before that happens, though, he receives a roll of negatives from legendary photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn). Negative 25 is supposed to be the best picture he’s ever taken, and it’s meant to be the cover of the final issue. But Negative 25 isn’t there. Walter goes on an adventure of his own in search of the reclusive photographer.
The film is most powerful in its first act, even though it isn’t the part that’s meant to be uplifting. It finds something vital in Walter’s plight, the man using fantasy to escape from an increasingly drab reality defined by economic woes and a lack of human interaction. The film embodies this melancholy in its transformation of Life to Life Online, with the uncaring corporate overlords seeing little value in the tangible product of all these people’s hard work. Stiller as a director has always had a skill for capturing small moments of human interaction, and that skill painfully establishes what is being lost.
But the film loses its way as fantasy gives way to actual adventure. It doesn’t quite feel right that the film place so much importance on the grandness of Walter making the trip, when it spent the first act painting out how inherently decent Walter is, and how his situation is borne of his being responsible. By the end, the film almost seems resentful of the quiet guys who simply do their jobs, urging people to throw it all away to go on some ill-advised adventure. That doesn’t sit right. Also uncomfortable: the vast amounts of product placement in a film that seemingly strives for an anti-corporate message.
But the film gains much from the sweet moments peppered throughout. The mostly low-key performances give the film its sense of verisimilitude. As Walter Mitty, Ben Stiller displays really affecting melancholy. He plays well with Kristen Wiig, who is really good at expressing the quiet sadness that may lie beneath even the friendliest smile. The two form the solid heart of this film, their subdued, often awkward interactions grounding the film in this reality, even when things get out of hand.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty can be quite lovely at times, but it’s too intent on being a big budget spectacle. That compromises the film severely, muddling its messaging and taking away from the sweetness that it finds in small moments of getting to know these characters. I know Hollywood doesn’t really want it from Stiller anymore, but I’d love to see him do smaller films again. As a director and an actor, Stiller has a real talent for finding the raw humanity in even the smallness of life. That is the impression that he leaves in this film, even when things get too large.
My Rating:
