Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty wants badly to be a film about waking up. It spends 114 minutes telling you to stop dreaming and start living, then hands you a daydream to do it with. The 2013 adventure comedy-drama, written by Steve Conrad, is a remake of the 1947 film of the same name, and both are adaptations of James Thurber’s 1939 short story. It premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 5, 2013, and 20th Century Fox released it in North America on December 25, 2013. It lands at 5.4 of 10.
Trailer, via 20th Century Studios India.
A Negative Assets Manager in New York
Walter Mitty works as a negative assets manager at Life magazine, living alone in New York City. He daydreams constantly and nurses a secret crush on a coworker, Cheryl Melhoff. He tries to reach her through eHarmony, but customer service agent Todd Mahar tells him his profile is incomplete — the “been there” and “done that” sections are blank.
That is the whole joke, and the film knows it. Walter’s life is a form he never filled out.
He works with the legendary photojournalist Sean O’Connell, though the two have never met in person. Sean is old-school: analog film, later a telegram. He sends Walter a negative roll and a wallet as thanks. He tells Walter and Life management that negative #25 captures the “quintessence of life” and belongs on the cover of the magazine’s final print issue before it goes digital.
Negative #25 is missing.
Ted Hendricks and the Missing Frame
Ted Hendricks runs the magazine’s transition, and Adam Scott plays him as the exact manager who makes a shrinking print staff miserable. When Ted asks to see #25, Walter stalls, afraid of being fired. He asks Cheryl for help contacting O’Connell instead.
Walter studies the other negatives for clues to where Sean went: water, a thumb, a curved object he cannot name. He and his assistant Hernando spot a reflection in the water — the name of a ship registered in Greenland.
So the man who cannot fill out a dating profile gets on a plane to Greenland. That is the film’s best move.
A Drunk Pilot and Cold Water
In Nuuk, a bartender tells Walter that Sean left on a ship. The only way to reach him is the postal helicopter, and its pilot is drunk. Walter recognizes the pilot’s thumb from one of the negatives and joins the pilot on a supply run to the ship.
He jumps into ice-cold, shark-infested water by accident. He loses the ship’s supplies. When he comes aboard, he has also prevented radio communication. Every step toward Sean costs Walter something, and the film is better when it lets him pay.
Stop dreaming. Start living.
That line is the film’s tagline. The problem is that the film’s most vivid passages are still the daydreams, which is an argument against its own ending.
What the Cast Is Doing Here
Kristen Wiig plays Cheryl, and the film never gives her enough to do beyond being the reason Walter boards a plane. Shirley MacLaine plays his mother, Edna Mitty. Kathryn Hahn plays his sister, Odessa Mitty. Patton Oswalt is Todd Maher, Adrian Martinez is Hernando, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson is the helicopter pilot.
Gunnar Helgason plays the hotel keeper, Terence Bernie Hines is Gary Mannheim, and Alex Anfanger is Ted’s toner box associate. Sean Penn plays Sean O’Connell, and the casting is the point: the elusive artist gets the movie star’s face.
A Production That Spanned Decades
The film took a long road. Its tumultuous production history spanned multiple studios, directors and leading actors dating back to 1994 before it found traction in 2011 with Stiller as director and star.
The National Board of Review chose it as one of the top ten films of 2013. Reception at release was generally mixed, with praise for Stiller’s direction, the cinematography, and a soundtrack featuring José González. In recent years appreciation has grown, and many now treat it as a cult classic.
The Release Schedule
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1994 | Production history dates back to this year |
| 2011 | Stiller attached as director and star |
| October 5, 2013 | Premieres at the New York Film Festival |
| December 25, 2013 | Theatrical release in North America by 20th Century Fox |
What the Film Actually Gets Right
The Greenland stretch is where The Secret Life of Walter Mitty stops explaining itself and starts moving. Walter joins a drunk pilot because of a thumb he saw in a photograph. That is a real decision, made by a man with no evidence and no backup, and it is the only time the film trusts its own premise.
The rest of the time it hedges. The daydreams are staged as set pieces — bigger, louder, more expensive than anything in Walter’s actual life. You cannot sell a movie on the idea that fantasy is a trap while making the fantasy the best-looking part.
Why the Sincerity Does Not Hold
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a sincere film with a structural problem it never solves. It wants Walter’s ordinary courage to outshine his imagination, but it films the imagination with more care.
Stiller directs with real ambition, and the González soundtrack does more emotional work than the script. The Life magazine material is the sharpest thing here: a print institution closing, a manager who only exists to count what is left, a final issue that needs one perfect frame.
That story has teeth. The one about a man learning to live does not, because the film never lets Walter be boring enough to be real. The cult status makes sense — it is a movie people project onto — but projection is not the same as a good movie.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
