The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (12)
D: Ben Stiller
20th Century Fox/New Line/Red Hour (Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., John
Goldwyn, Stuart Cornfeld & Ben Stiller)
US/Canada/UK/Australia 2013
114 mins
Comedy/Adventure
W: Steve Conrad [based on a story by James
Thurber]
DP: Stuart Dryburgh
Ed: Greg Hayden
Mus: Theodore Shapiro
Ben Stiller (Walter Mitty), Kristen Wiig (Cheryl Melhoff),
Shirley MacLaine (Edna Mitty), Adam Scott (Ted Hendricks), Kathryn Hahn (Odessa Mitty), Sean Penn (Sean O'Connell)
Despite this being Ben Stiller's most mature work as
director/star, the film isn't really that special.
The film is a remake of a 1947 film starring Danny Kaye, but
in this version Stiller plays the title character, a photo archivist at a magazine publisher who escapes from his own mundane existence by daydreaming on a frequent basis, when the negative
for the upcoming final issue of the magazine goes missing, Mitty goes on a worldwide quest to relocate it, taking him to Greenland, Iceland and the Himalayas, meeting an array
of characters while he pines for the woman of his dreams (Kristen Wiig). The main problem I had with this film was not knowing whether what I was seeing was real or merely a figment of Mitty's
imagination and even by the end I was left completely undecided.
The performances are fine, the photography is excellent and
there's some great visuals, but it's not really a great film.
Overall, it felt like an ego trip for Ben Stiller to go
sightseeing and hiking up mountains.
5/10
