The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a short story written by James Thurber. It was my mom’s favorite. If you haven’t read it I urge you to do so. It’s not that long, a few pages.
It’s been made into a movie with Ben Stiller, and Kristien Wigg. Normally, I don’t like their work, but this is different. It’s sweet. It’s touching.
Thurber wrote for the New Yorker back in the 30s. Back when writing had style, grace, and elegance. When humor was subtle and not in-your-face gross.
Walter Mitty was a character who had a boring nothing job, very milk-toasty, but in his mind he went many places and did lots of things. He was bold, brave, and daring – in his mind.
Isn’t there a little bit of Walter Mitty in all of us?
Jeff Goldblum said in The Big Chill “You can do without sex but not a good juicy rationalization.” What about a fantasy of greatness starring you? Would that count too?
I think so.
Stiller seems to have matured, like Woody Allen matured. Wigg does not have any of her usual annoying mannerisms. The photography is stunning. Sean Penn gives a great, but brief, performance and so does Shirley MacClaine. Stiller takes the concept that Thurber wrote about and writes a new story using the idea of someone who daydreams of doing great things. However, for Stiller’s Mitty real life intersects with his fantasy world and he becomes the sort of person his day dreams were about.
The screen play is clever and well written.
I was surprised by the reviews I saw. Most of them seemed to have negative sounding titles but the body of the review was positive. The only exception being Roger Ebbert who trashed Stiller. However, his commentary was negative about earlier movies Stiller had made and I would also give Stiller low marks for some of those like Zoolander, and that thing in Hawaii. It seemed Ebbert couldn’t forgive Stiller for those. He spent little time commenting on Mitty.
In some ways the reviews reminded me of The Accountant, which was a terrific action movie. It came out the same time that a Tom Cruise Jack Reacher movie came out. The Reacher movie was bad. Ben Affleck in the Accountant was terrific, but if you read the reviews you’d never know it.
I urge you to see the movie, even if you aren’t a fan of Stiller or Wigg.
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