By Luke Needham ‘24
The movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, directed by, co-produced by, and starring Ben Stiller is simply perfect and hilarious. It explores various genres including comedy, drama, and adventure all wrapped together to show one great 114-minute project. It takes place in the offices of Time magazine in New York City, and migrates through the streets of New York City and central park. Eventually, Walter travels to Nuuk, Greenland and the Himalayan mountains in Afghanistan.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was written by Steve Conrad and is based on the original short story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” written by James Thurber in 1939. The movie made its way through multiple studios starting in 1994 going through rewrites and many director, producer, and cast changes. It was eventually completed and distributed by 20th Century Fox in 2013.
The movie shows the story of a man who is constantly daydreaming and putting himself in scenarios where he becomes a hero or impresses a girl that he likes. He makes a connection with the owner of eHarmony and they discuss how he has nothing to put on his “been there” and “done that” sections of his profile because he lives a boring life. At Time magazine, Walter is the negative assets manager where he is sent the photo for the final print of the magazine by an extraordinary photojournalist. He realizes that the negative is missing from the film roll, and the movie shows his quest to find Sean O’Conell and the missing negative #25, also known as “the quintessence of life”.
The cast of the movie include Ben Stiller as the main character, Walter Mitty, and Kristen Wiig as Cheryl Melhoff, who is the love interest and co-worker of Walter. The soundtrack of the movie includes the infamous “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” and “Space Oddity” implemented in perfect places in the movie. The cinematography of the movie is beautiful, showing wonderful landscapes and scenes shot in Iceland and New York City.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was nominated for 11 awards after premiering in 2013. It won three including Top 10 Films of 2013 by National Board of Review, Outstanding Location Feature Film by Location Managers Guild Awards, and Best Audio Visual Technique by Key Art Awards. Despite these awards, the movie did not receive the best reviews from the public including a 52% from Rotten Tomatoes and a 54/100 from
Metacritic. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is an overall great movie with excellent casting, cinematography, and sound. I would recommend this movie to anyone because it gives a meaningful message of living your life to the fullest and taking risks in order to achieve your goals. I would rate this film a 9/10, and I hope that everyone watches it. Overall this movie is severely underrated and should be recognized a lot more in pop culture.