THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY
US, 2013, 112 minutes, Colour.
Ben Stiller, Kristin Wiig, Shirley Mac Laine, Kathryn Hahn, Sean Penn, Adam Scott.
Directed by Ben Stiller.
Ben Stiller.
Ben Stiller has been making an impact on cinema screens and on television screens for several decades. He can write. He can direct. And he can be a striking screen presence, sometimes hilarious, sometimes more serious, and in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, something of both.
In his early 30s, he chose to make, both directing and acting, the absurdly funny Zoolander. Zoolander was a supremely self-confident of award-winning nincompoop of a male model, coming from a disapproving mining family, vain, ignorant, but, finally, something of a movie hero. That was then, this is now. In his early 40s, he has decided to re-create James Thurber’s comic character, Walter Mitty. The short story by Thurber is readily available on the Internet, only two pages long, published in early 1939 – with a comic and musical version starring Danny Kaye in 1947.
Is a 1930s Walter Mitty relevant to the 21st century? In a period when men are supposed to be men (with more than a macho touch), is there room for a comic hero who is alarmingly introverted, satisfied on the surface with his 16 year basement but important job in framing and editing the photos for Life Magazine, unable to make real contact to find a girlfriend? And there is also his mother and sister, Shirley MacLaine? enjoying herself as his mother, Kathryn Hahn as his eccentric sister.
A man is expected to be sure of his identity and go about using it and developing it. Although, come to think of it, there is a whole generation of introverted game-players, assuming all kinds of identities instead of their own – is there a Walter Mitty computer game?
At the opening, Walter is unable to send a ‘wink’ to an attractive girl at work. He phones the computer dating company and begins a series of conversations, often at the most inopportune times and unlikely places, with the editor of the site, finally meeting him when he makes one of those times opportune instead of inopportune (funny silhouette version of an airport search). And then he goes into ‘the zone’, those imaginary spaces and places which Thurber introduced in his short story and which filmmakers and writers have taken much, much further. Walter is a hero, he rescues dogs, his photo is on the cover of Life Magazine, and , then, he is stranded on the subway station having missed his train.
Matters get complicated at Life Magazine, an executive (Adam Scott) being sent in to close the print magazine and put it on-line. This executive is a monster of a person, ruthless in his self-satisfaction and in his downsizing the staff. Needless to say, he is not impressed by Walter Mitty at all (though Walter does get the better of him in fights in the elevator and skateboarding along New York streets, in his imagination, of course). Then there is Cheryl (Kristin Wiig), new at Life Magazine, with a young son and an ex-husband, who begins a touch compassionately for Walter eventually attracted to him.
And that is only the opening. The Mitty adventures really begin, in real life, when Walter flies to Greenland to try to make contact with Life’s staff photographer, an interesting cameo by Sean Penn. There are some funny sequences with a big, burley, inebriated, singing helicopter pilot who takes Walter out to the ship, dropping him in the sea for him to be picked up rather than landing on the small ship. No luck in Greenland, trying out in Iceland where there are lots of mod cons but an erupting volcano. So a few Mitty real-life adventures.
Just when we think that this is a climax, Walter’s mother tells him that she has met the photographer and he has gone to Afghanistan to film snow leopard’s. What else is Walter to do but go there – the aim to find the perfect photo for the last cover and meet the deadline. Actually, what follows, in the Himalayas, are some rather nice emotional touches care of Sean Penn, and the resolution of the problem so laid-back that you might not notice, care of Shirley Mac Laine.
Walter’s imaginings are entertaining, with some funny episodes, though the film is not a long laugh-aloud to fun-fest. Rather it is a somewhat romantic, comic and serious exploration of a man in mid-life crisis who has not really faced his early-life crises. Good luck to Ben Stiller.
1. The story by James Thurber? The film with Danny Kaye? The film of the 1940s? A re-interpretation from 2013? Issues of fantasy, reality, identity?
2. Ben Stiller, his career, his work as actor, writer, start? Is screen presence? Genial and gentle here? More than a touch of the romantic?
3. The blend of fantasy and reality, the opening at the railway station, he is trying to send the Link, the fantasy and the dive, the rescue of the dog, the explosion, Cheryl and her gratitude? His being in the zone? The phone call about the website? This sequence of establishing his character and the audience accepting it?
4. New York City, the cityscapes, Manhattan, the offices, streets, skating rink, parts parks, skateboards, apartments? The atmospheric score?
5. The scenes in Greenland, the town, the isolation, the inn, the ship, small, the bunks and caverns? Iceland, the roads, the hotels, the eruption? The contrast with Afghanistan, the Himalayas, the high mountain peaks? More exotic?
6. Ben Stiller’s portrait of Walter Mitty, male, in his 40s, his work of 16 years, hidden, his partner at work, shy and awkward, talking to the manager of the dating website, his not having a proper profile, not enough activity? His being satisfied with Winks? At work, the new boss, his role to bring out the last issue of Life Magazine in print? In the elevator, the nasty encounter, Walter being in the zone and confronting the man, flowing through Manhattan, digging up the roads? The skateboards, the fights? Cheryl and his relationship, in reality, imagining him saving her in the ice? Misinterpreting her, talking, giving her the job to track down Sean’s address? In his office, downstairs in the dark, the photos, his 16 years of editing the photos, the missing picture, 25? Meeting Cheryl and her son, the skateboard, his imagining his heroics with her? The slinging off of the boss with Major Tom? The photo, searching everywhere, his assistant? The deadlines, the meetings, the mockery? His being humiliated? Going to visit his mother, his birthday, his sister with the cake, the issue of the piano, seeing it being transferred across the buildings, his mother and her concern about his going into the zone? His memories, the photos, working at Papa Johns, his father, the diary with nothing in it?
7. The decision to search for Sean, flying to Greenland, in the bar, the information, the big pilot and his singing and drinking, his decision to go with the pilot? Imagining Cheryl and her guitar, singing Major Tom, encouraging him to go into the helicopter, his jump? His having to dive into the sea, the shark and its menace, losing the radio parts? The rescue, on the boat, the sympathetic captain, the sympathetic pro-American in the cabin?
8. In Iceland, urged to take the bicycle, riding the roads, finding Papa Johns in Iceland, the motel, the boy’s not speaking English, bargaining for the skateboard? The man warning him to leave, his going on the skate board, the eruption, the man coming to rescue him, the escape? Coming home, his mother, the irony of Sean visiting her, the codes? The gift of the wallet, the words, his being touched? Disappointment, throwing away the wallet?
9. Going to Afghanistan, the trek, the heights, the sherpas, their hitting him with blessing? The difficulty and freezing, finding Sean, photographing the Snow leopards, the photo being in the wallet, playing soccer, returning home? The comedy piece of his being examined by the customs for his flute, his treatment? The editor of the website knowing who he was, getting him out, having the coffee together? His mother, casually giving him the wallet, the photo and not looking at it? Asserting himself about the magazine? Collecting his severance pay, seeing Cheryl, having left the skateboard to her son and thinking the repair man was her husband? The truth? Seeing the photo on the cover of Life Magazine – and Sean’s tribute to him and his work?
10. Cheryl, her story, different jobs, the son, the skateboard, the ex-husband, in Walter’s imagination, being rescued, encouraging him? Walking with him, the cover, the happy ending? Her son, the video message and thanks for the skateboard? The prospects of a happy family?
11. The manager of the transition, his pomposity, retrenching people, lack of feelings, his speeches, the issue of the quintessence and his not knowing the meaning? His mocking Walter? His assistants? The imagined fights, his being a comics-strip villain?
12. Walter’s assistant, their friendship, working together, trying to find the photo?
13. The editor of the website, the phone calls at all the different locations, the humour, Walter building up his profile, Cheryl on the website, Walter wanting his profile to be taken off? Needing the editor to identify him, their coffee, the encouragement?
14. His sister, her husband, the gift of the piano, knowing that Walter went into the zone? The meetings with Walter and his sister? Sean, coming to meet her, the comments and tributes? The wallet, perceiving it?
15. The people in Iceland, at the bar, the pilot? In Iceland, the boys and the skateboard, the man taking him from the eruption, the men in the boat?
16. Sean, top photographer, Sean Penn in the role, his story, if elusive, visiting Walter’s mother, the gift of the wallet, the niceness of the photo concealed in it? The filming of the snow leopards, his contemplation?
17. Contemporary story, the American male, self-confidence, lacking it? Retrenchments in the Internet age, magazines going online, publications being executed? And Walter Mitty discovering real life?
