Mitty misses magic
What’s with all the sincerity all of a sudden?
A mere decade ago Ben Stiller and his cronies were sarcastically cackling themselves into a hot tub of irony bubbling with sexual vulgarity, and now they’re all crying into their Man-tinis looking for the meaning of life.
Part of it is natural as the Stillers, Vince Vaughns and Owen Wilsons of the world round the corner into middle age and take their first long look at mortality. The rest is a result of that deathly unrest as it manifests in a latent desire to be taken seriously — in a way that wearing glasses alone cannot accomplish.
No wonder The Secret Life of Walter Mitty feels a bit like a rock ’n’ roll funeral video.
You know the ones they have these days, where the life of the dearly departed is sewn into a montage featuring a medley of Bruce Springsteen and other rock songs? As a mourner, you’re never quite sure if you should flick your Bic or cry as the fading strains of Stairway to Heaven serenade the cortège from the room.
This surreal emotional schism leaves an empty feeling behind, because for all the grandiose ambition of the ceremony itself, the painful smallness of it all is undeniable.
Ben Stiller’s take on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, James Thurber’s short story about an ordinary man who loses himself in heroic fantasies, tries to deal with some of this existential angst directly through theme.
Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is a photo archivist at Life Magazine who loves and cares for each roll of negative and contact sheet as though it were a shred of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Walter is a nobody, but he dreams of being a somebody, so when the magazine undergoes a major management change that renders him redundant, he realizes he has nothing to lose and finally steps out to meet his destiny.
His quest begins as a search for a missing negative: The prize photographer for the magazine (Sean Penn) has taken what he believes to be the best cover image for the last issue, but Walter cannot find it among the negatives.
The only thing he has is an incomplete roll of film and a cryptic message burned into a handmade wallet from the shooter. In order to decipher the note, he has to find the globe-trotting cameraman.
It’s a pretty simple setup that also features a romantic interest played by Kristen Wiig, but given the opening sequence features Walter trying to send a “wink” to a prospective online date, we can rest assured the love stuff will come second to Walter’s self-discovery.