The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

There are many storytellers out there whether they be alive or not. So when they pass away, what better tribute on their behalf can we do than to allow them to entertain us via a film based on their creative work. Earlier we saw Disney's "Frozen" based on the Hans Christian Andersen classic story, "Snow Queen", and now we have another film based on the classic story by James Thurber called "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty".

Ben Stiller stars as Walter Mitty in the Thurber classic story of a day-dreamer who escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. When his job at Life Magazine along with that of co-worker Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig) are threatened, Walter takes action in the real world embarking on a global journey that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.
As Life Magazine comes to a close, they decide to choose a particular negative taken by famed photographer Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn) for its cover, but inexplicably, that particular negative comes up missing from the submitted roll of film. So after Mitty and co-worker Hernando (Adrian Martinez) comb their lab, so as the boss Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott) not finding out it's lost, Mitty decides to crack the case and purse the whereabouts of O'Connell.

Others to round out the cast are Shirley MacLaine as Edna Mitty, Walter's mom, Kathryn Hahn as Odessa Mitty, Walter's sister, Jonathan C. Daly as Tim Naughton, co-worker of Walter's, Marcus Antturi as Rich Melhoff, Cheryl's son, Patton Oswalt as Todd Maher, Olafur Darri Olafsson as Helicopter Pilot, Ari Matthiasson as Trawler 1st Mate, and Kai Lennox as Phil Melhoff, Cheryl's ex-husband.

This was dryly directed by Ben Stiller ("Reality Bites" '94, "The Cable Guy" '96, "Zoolander" '01, "Tropic Thunder" '08, "The Station" (TV movie) '09). Even though Stiller is truly adept at over-the-top film fare, he himself realizes that Thurber's story is a story about a sad-sack sort of person which exudes a more subtle feel than that of physical comedy. The screenplay and screen story by Steven Conrad ("Wrestling Ernest Hemingway" '93, "Lawrence Melm" '04, "The Weather Man" '05, "The Pursuit of Happyness" '06, "The Promotion" '08, "Connie Banks the Actor" (TV movie) '11), also keeps that subtleness that Thurber continually brings to each and every one of his stories. This was a great homage to a great storyteller which was one of our best American humorists of the 20th century. I was concerned that Stiller couldn't pull off the same role that Danny Kaye did back in 1947, but after seeing a small quirky dry comedy called "Greenberg", I felt that Stiller would succeed, and I was correct.

We all go to that place in our minds that Mitty goes to, but the problem we have with that concept is that Mitty has much more fun with it, and I believe that is the success of this story about a man that can find adventure, action and romance merely by turning on his imagination. And isn't this where we all would like to be?

Out of 4 Stars: 4                          Rated: PG                         114mins.