Walter Mitty represents the everyman. The unnoticed. The dreamer. Ben Stiller certainly is a dreamer, but he lives in Hollywood, so is take on the everyman is going to be a little skewed. Stiller’s take on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has its heart in the right place, but it misses the mark on saying something profound about the people the movie is trying to showcase. However, it does have Stiller skateboarding, so that is something.
Walter Mitty (Stiller) is a mild-mannered film caretaker of Life Magazine. When Life decides to go online, it chooses to print its last issue using the 25th reel from star photojournalist Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn). However, the 25th reel is missing. To appease his boss (Adam Scott), Walter searches out O’Connell with the help of Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig), a woman he has been pining for for a while now.
Walter Mitty’s secret life starts out mostly in his head, since he zones out and imagines lots of crazy things he wants to do. His imagination gives way to real life as the movie goes on with his search for O’Connell. These scenes are beautifully shot (credit going to Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh). The shots range from the Greenland bar scene to the volcanic slopes of Iceland and the Afghani mountains. The transitions from imagination to real life are easy enough to identify so as to not confuse the audience. These scenes overall don’t add much to the story, but they are great to look at and give The Secret Life of Walter Mitty some jubilee at going out into the world and taking chances.
This movie falls short of transcendence because of its story. More often than not, Stiller forces the story forward with obvious plot contrivances pushing the limits of believability. There is an extended skateboarding sequence that while looking beautiful, doesn’t really make any sense other than to showcase the mountains and Arcade Fire. Walter Mitty’s greatest scenes are the tiny ones: when Cheryl and Walter talk about taking risks and their lives, the movie ripples with tension and interest. Had the story had interest in using Cheryl to push Walter toward his goal more, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty could have made those beautiful travels fit nicely within the context of Walter’s character. Instead the movie comes off disjointed and trying too hard to make the audience care for its main character.
Ben Stiller is pretty good at playing the everyman. After years of seeing him let loose, it’s kind of nice to see he can tone it down and sell meekness well. Walter Mitty’s failings are due to Stiller’s direction and writers, not his acting. Kristen Wiig gets some nice chemistry with Stiller, and also downplays her quirks to play someone relatively normal. The fact that her scenes with Stiller get the biggest emotional impact are a testament to Wiig. Adam Scott is wasted as Walter’s boss: he mostly is a plot device. Shirley McClaine, Sean Penn, Patton Oswalt, and Kathryn Hahn all get little pieces of support in minor roles.
Ben Stiller clearly has a lot of clout with audiences and in Hollywood, which is why it is so disappointing to see him waste his talents on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. A couple more revisions of the script would probably have made this movie great, but instead we get this half-finished product. There are two things this movie gives the audience hope for: Kristen Wiig has unlimited range as an actress, and Ben Stiller can star as an aging X-Games star in a sports movie, which will be hysterical.