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| Review by Clay N Ferno |
Ben Stiller stars in and directs The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in theaters this Christmas Day.
Mitty works at LIFE Magazine in the mundane but important position as the print publication’s archivist, made even more important as the cancellation of the magazine has become imminent.
In a series of daydreaming fugue states and real life adventures, Walter Mitty is a comedy that is also full of action as Walter’s job threatens to end, his crush is unrequited and his family struggles to make ends meet.
Kristen Wiig co-stars as love interest Cheryl Melhoff and the two sparkle on screen in this romantic delve into daydreams. Adam Scott plays the villainous Ted Hendricks, new boss at LIFE and Sean Penn plays LIFE’s on assignment globetrotting cover photographer.
Stiller’s performance is impressive in this reimagining of the classic 1939 short story written by James Thurber.
Walter is constantly being awakened by his friends and coworkers after drifting off into a fantasy world, magically filled with half-understandings and half-articulations of his inner dialogue. For example, when crushing on Cheryl (Wiig), he imagines having Benjamin Button disease, though has not seen the movie, and isn’t ‘sure how it works’. This leaves an old lady Wiig on the porch swing with a baby old-man Stiller nustled into her bosom as the two garner SNL skit belly laughs in the greased lens of the daydream.
“I’m probably boring you about my refrigerator” — the line that snaps Mitty back into reality from his cute and ugly baby form.
Parks and Recreation‘s Adam Scott, plays a serious and intimidating avatar of jerk-head boss (complete with a formidable beard), demanding that Mitty find him the lost photo negative sent to him by Sean O’Connell (Penn) to be used as the cover for the LIFE‘s last issue.
Walter and Ted Hendricks have an almost Man of Steel tug a war that starts in the LIFE elevator over Mitty’s recently discovered childhood toy, Stretch Armstrong in another dream scene.
Kathryn Hahn and Shirley MacLaine play Walter’s performance artist sister and widowed mother, respectively. MacLaine’s matriarchal role serves as encouragement to Walter, and reminds him of the potential he could have reached, had his father not died forcing Walter to start working so hard as a teenager at Papa John’s. Hahn’s Odessa serves as a balance to Walter’s id as well, choosing art and fantasy over being a serious worker bee.
Steve Conrad’s script and screenplay is full of touching moments, funny physical gags and even musical numbers, lit up by Stiller and his supporting cast.
At the tipping point between fantasy and reality, Mitty travels to Greenland in pursuit of O’Connell, a person he’s never met but has worked with for years, providing the support back home to the artistic photography and adventures of the award winning photographer.
Through a series of real-life choices, encouraged by an all too adorable Cheryl (a daydream) serenading Walter with “Space Oddity” onto a helicopter with a drunk pilot to a fishing vessel in the Arctic — Walter’s amazing stories and fantasies are nothing as to what happens to him for the rest of the movie.
Beautiful and epic shots of Greenland, a volcanic explosion, the Afghan mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush all prove to Walter that there is a bigger world out there by taking risks and making tough choices.
Intermittently throughout the movie, we hear from Todd (Patton Oswalt), Walter’s eHarmony representative. The conversations about getting Walter more winks and Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” are flat out hilarious, in the contexts that Walter ends up picking up the phone.
Walter knows that Cheryl is also on eHarmony, and is looking to recreate the cocktail song’s romance with her in a modern way.
This PG movie is delightful for the entire family, with award winning potential.
Stiller moves away from straight comedy or parody by directing Mitty, and this could be the next evolution for his career. There is also a maturity in his performance that does not downplay his comedic acting skills, but rather, like the slight gray in his temples, makes for a comedic realism that is rare in movies these days.
While we await for Zoolander 2 to bring back the Blue Steel and tiny cell phones, Walter Mitty serves as a masterful, calculated and smart movie. Kristin Wiig also expands palette from being a straight comedic actor to that of an endearing and somewhat bumbling leading lady and perfect mate for Walter in the movie.
As both of these actors stage themselves on either sides of their forties, the facets exposed by this movie pushes both into a stage of their career that can only be described as the next level.
I would love to see these two in front of the camera together again, or have Stiller direct Wiig’s next movie, as a director he’s gotten the best performances out of her that the screen has been graced with.
If movies are a part of your holiday tradition, everyone will enjoy The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
