The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Ben Stiller changes gears from the absurdist comedic stylings of “Zoolander” and “Tropic Thunder” with his latest effort behind the camera. I remember when, back in the ’90s, this was a film Jim Carrey had his eyes on starring in. It would have been an interesting film, and it certainly is with Stiller instead. This is very much out of the actor/director’s wheel box of what we expect from him, and it’s all the better as a result.
Walter Mitty is a man whose dreams are big and bold, but whose life is very ordinary. He’s a negative accessor for Life Magazine, and is a favorite of their freelance photographer, Sean O’Connell (played by Sean Penn). The film picks up as the magazine is in transition, and being sold off and prepped to become an online entity. O’Connell has sent his latest negative roll in to the offices, with a suggestion for one picture, in particular, for the cover. However, when Walter and his assistant start to develop the pictures, they find that the picture in question is missing. To make matters worse, O’Connell has sent a telegraph to the transition team (headed by the snarky, slimy Adam Scott) about the picture, forcing Walter to stall while he tracks down the photographer to solve the mystery of the missing picture, which, O’Connell claims, captures the “quintessence of life”– a perfect send-off for the magazine’s print life.
This isn’t quite the movie the film’s trailers have been selling, however. Instead, Fox has been playing up the scenes of Walter’s daydreams, where he is the type of adventurous spirit O’Connell seems to be, and the unrequited love he has for Kristen Wiig’s Cheryl, who also works at Life. The trailers have also made the film seem more fantastical and light than it really is. Based on a short story by James Thurber, and written for the screen by Steven Conrad (who also found the same notes of melancholy in his script for the criminally underrated “The Weather Man”), “Walter Mitty” is more a character study than a Hollywood fantasy. There’s seems to be something of a kinship, in tone, with “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” and that is played off of in one of the film’s funniest moments (which doesn’t quite get the idea in “Button” right, but is still very funny). Mitty is someone who observes life rather than lives it, although that might be why he’s so good as a film developer for O’Connell. It doesn’t really translate to dating, however; even though he works with Cheryl, he still signs up on eHarmony (where she has a page) for the sake of communicating with her, and possibly asking her out. In that way (Walter being more an observer, rather than a participant, in life), “Button” is a good comparison, as is “Forrest Gump,” especially when Walter treks to Greenland in hopes of tracking down O’Connell about the missing picture. But based on what we’ve seen before he makes his way to Greenland, we aren’t completely sure whether that is one of Walter’s daydreams or not until much later.
The disparity between the film itself, and the film Fox has been seemingly selling, is a bit disheartening, because it does a disservice to what is one of Stiller’s most interesting movies. (I can’t really say “best” movies, though; it’s really good, and a lot of it resonated with me on a personal level, but it seems like Stiller is unsure of the movie he wants to make, at times.) Yes, the film has comedic moments, including some like we’ve come to expect from Stiller’s movies, but this is really a project akin to “The Truman Show” for the actor/director, who stretches his wings a bit, and gets strong, subtle work out of his cast (whether it’s Wiig and Penn or Shirley MacLaine as Walter’s mother or Patton Oswalt as an eHarmony rep who becomes fixated on Walter) that is more subdued that we expect not only out of a Stiller film, but out of the actors themselves. The cast understands their characters well, especially Stiller, who seems to be going on a journey himself in “Walter Mitty.” He’s always been a unique comedic voice at his best, or at least boldest (remember– he also directed Carrey in his first, real “left turn” movie, “The Cable Guy”). After this film, however, I’m curious to see where he’ll take us next, and what type of movie we can expect out of him. Hopefully, it’ll be something like this, where we don’t know what to expect.
