The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Ben Stiller is Walter Mitty - an average New Yorker who works developing photographs for ‘Life’ magazine. He escapes his repetitive, working day with vivid and always entertaining daydreams of a more adventurous, romantic and fulfilling life. But when ‘Life’ magazine shuts down its print division and Walter loses the cover photo for the final edition he must track down its photographer across the world in an adventure that even he couldn’t have dreamt up.

As the plot synopsis hints - or the on-the-nose tagline “Stop Dreaming. Start Living” makes abundantly clear - at the heart of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a sweet and charming message about making the most of life and living in the moment. Appropriate for its Boxing Day release date. Sadly, this message is lost amidst a fog of laboured comedy and a plot stretched precariously-thin by the film’s 114 minute run-time.

Directed by Ben Stiller, the film is based on a short story by James Thurber that first appeared in The New Yorker in 1939. Brought to the screen once before in 1947, this latest interpretation of the story is scribed by Steve Conrad most known for scripting “The Pursuit of Happiness” in 2006.

Whilst there are some genuinely endearing and heartfelt moments in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” these are more often than not few and far between. Firstly, the film is a two hour adaptation of a twenty-three page story.
And it shows.

The plot is repetitive and slogs at an grinding pace. The same comedy-beats are thrown-up time and time again and chances are you’ll have figured out the ending, the message and all of the plot-twists long before the action on-screen catches-up with your thought process.

It’s not that “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a bad film. In many ways it is very likeable. Ben Stiller is a great screen presence and plays the part of the downtrodden, day-dreaming everyday man very well. Some of the dialogue is very pithy and funny. And despite the flaws in the plot, the characters and the pacing, the film - aided by its Christmas release - does fill you with a sense of renewed purpose and a lust for adventure.

But it is not worth rushing your Boxing Day dinner to get to the cinema to see this film.
Stay inside in front of the fire, pour yourself another glass of Champagne, have a mince pie and a Quality Street and ask for “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” on DVD for Christmas next year.

5/10
@JustAaronBrown