Movie Review: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Each time Ben Stiller is confronted with the opportunity to share a more personal side of himself or delve deeper into life, he refuses to let us in and then trivializes human drama and conflict with a brush-off.  Scenes with the potential to make you think much more deeply get interrupted by cheap laughs, which always seems to be Stiller’s comfort zone.  In the end, we feel cheated.

Ben Stiller produced, directed, and stars in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

This is a film you root for.  It’s a movie you want to like.

The premise sounds interesting enough.  An insecure middle-aged man works for a popular magazine and now faces a serious mid-life crisis.  He’s desperate to find his true love.  But he’s also challenged by his inherent awkwardness and lack of self-confidence.  Worse, he’s about to lose his job.

This sets up an interesting journey, both figuratively and literally, and we’re glad to go along for the ride.

Stiller lives and works in New York City, which is familiar territory for the actor who always seems connected with his midtown roots, the same way Woody Allen will always be married to Manhattan.  He’s been employed in the photo department at Life magazine for 16 years.  Unfortunately, since print media is giving way to a new digital age, Stiller becomes expendable.  In what is to become the iconic magazine’s final issue to be published, Stiller is entrusted with obtaining the prized cover photograph — a most burdensome responsibility.

Somehow, Stiller manages to lose the negative.  This sets off a wild goose chase to some of the most extreme corners of the globe — Greenland, Iceland, and Afghanistan among the most outlandish destinations, where much of the filming actually took place.  He desperately hopes to link up with a legendary photographer who took the photo, cast to perfection with Sean Penn in the pivotal role.  Meeting up with the elusive Penn and finding that mysterious photograph becomes the objective of the story.

Along the way, Stiller finds his love interest.  He also suffers from what can only be described as occasional delusions of grandeur.  The story is interspersed with Stiller’s fantasies of what he wishes his life was really like — saving lives through courageous acts, making great discoveries, and ultimately becoming famous.  Sure, we all dream things.  But Stiller takes innocent fantasy way past the recreational phase.  It’s become an obsession.

Stiller’s movie is lots of things going for it, and also weighing it down.  It’s annoying, mesmerizing, brilliant, inspiring, dull, and finally — badly off target.  It never seems quite sure what it wants to be when it grows up — part whimsical fantasy, part social commentary, part love story, part coming-of-age metamorphosis.  Had Stiller stuck to a single consistent approach, this film might have worked well.  But much like his meandering excursions to faraway places, he’s all over the map without a compass.

Consider a few scenes which are brilliantly shot, but clouded with absurd situations.  In one scene, Stiller travels to a remote fishing village in Greenland, yet somehow manages to stumble into a Karaoke bar.  It’s during the middle of the afternoon, and someone is singing.  Well, naturally.  The scene is painfully awful, but then it’s immediately followed by some wonderful imagery of Greenland by helicopter with a powerful musical accompaniment.  That odd one-two punch sequence pretty much sums up The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  There’s a good movie trapped in there somewhere.  But it’s bogged down by Stiller’s lack of focus and incessant reliance on self-parody.

Indeed, that’s the problem with this movie.  Despite a number of strong performances and worthwhile films on his resume, Stiller still doesn’t seem to trust his own abilities.  A more serious and focused film, showing the emotional angst of breaking out of a comfortable bubble and experiencing the dangers of the outside world for the first time could have made for a marvelous story.  Inspiring, even.  Potentially, the ingredients were all here to elevate Stiller as a performer.  He had the chance to teach us something while entertaining us.

But each time Stiller is confronted with the opportunity to share a more personal side of himself or delve deeper into life, he refuses to let us in and then trivializes human drama and conflict with a brush-off.  Scenes with the potential to make you think much more deeply get interrupted by cheap laughs, which always seems to be Stiller’s comfort zone.  In the end, we feel cheated.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a badly missed opportunity for what could have been a good film.

Much like the sheltered, empty life the central character leads day to day, all the wonders of a good story were there.  We were eager to explore the possibilities.  But in the end, Mitty remains stuck inside the shell.  Watching this film, we’re trapped in there, too.

I give this a mixed review, with a slight lean towards passing on the movie.