HK Auteur film review - The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Rating: 8/10 (14 January 2014)

Typically I am not a fan of Ben Stiller's comedy, whenever he dons a wig and plays a crazy character, it is one-note and awkward. Stiller fares best when he is a normal person reacting to an awkward situation as opposed to being the source of awkwardness and the nebbish Walter Mitty character certainly plays to those strengths. Stiller's other brand of 'costume play' comedy in the fantasy sequences is fortunately reduced to a minimal. Here he is at his most naturally charming and Zoolander fans may disagree, but this is now officially my favorite thing Ben Stiller has directed and acted in.
Kristin Wiig is also naturally charming as Mitty's love interest and gets to shine in a musical sequence where she does a cover of David Bowie's Major Tom. Sean Penn has a funny supporting role as artsy photographer Sean O'Connell. Penn's trademark intensity is smartly sourced for laughs in a self-deprecating fashion similar to when Chris Rock quipped at Penn's humorless comeback over Jude Law at the Oscars.
The production design is impressive, with its visual compositions practically lifted from hardcover graphic design books and nifty editing transitions accompanied with cool looking fonts, which to some extent owes itself to Stranger Than Fiction. Stuart Dryburgh's photography delivers a true sense of awe for New York's urban cityscape and Greenland's natural landscapes. The story reason is to make Walter Mitty look like an ant in a big world, but that overwhelming sense of the environment towering over man seeps over onto the audience.
The reality of the film's own world is suspect, like the logistics of how an employee is able to leave work and fly off to a foreign country, or how much of a jerk the new corporate supervisor played by Adam Scott is being. None of this matters because the story is a fable after all. The viewer may feel in moments they need to give the story the benefit of the doubt. If that moment should occur, go along with it. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is imaginative and humorously made, and even in its weaker illogical moments is ultimately compensated by its charm. The lesson of someone who realizes he is missing out on life from daydreaming is just darn compelling, and it is emotionally cathartic watching Mitty wake up.
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