Summary
4 tech score
Ben Stiller and Kristin Wiig in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”; photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (20th Century Fox)
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a movie about a man with a boring real life and a fantastic fantasy life. Ben Stiller directed this film and also plays the lead role. He is not helped by the script for the film but the cinematography is amazing. Almost worth the price of admission by itself. It is a shame everything else is not up to that level.
Walter Mitty (Stiller) works for “Life Magazine.” He is in charge of getting the negatives checked out for the pictures that run in the magazine. It is not a very exciting job but that mirrors his life. For this reason Mitty lives in a dream world some of the time, and his companion in these fantasies is a co-worker by the name of Cheryl (Kristin Wiig).
One day when he arrives at work he learns the magazine is being closed. The head of the team supervising the shutdown is a man named Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott). He seems to take a personal dislike to Walter and taunts him at every chance. Walter tries to ignore him and concentrate on the last issue.
Photojournalist Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) has sent in his pictures for the last issue but the frame with the cover photo on it is missing. This throws Walter into a panic as he has to have that photo. The rest of the film concerns Walter’s efforts to contact Sean and get the photo.
All of this storyline is just a wisp of an idea stretched to infinity and back. It has very little substance and generates very little interest. Instead attending audiences are impressed by the cinematography and what a nice “family film” it is.
Stiller does little to make Walter interesting and there is very little chemistry generated between him and Wiig. Shirley Maclaine is wasted as his mother and Kathryn Hahn has almost nothing to do as his sister. These are talented people so why have them in the movie if you are not going to use them?
The movie is rated PG for mild profanity.
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is like a beautiful picture postcard from a boring relative. You enjoy looking at the picture but you don’t care two hoots for the message.
I scored “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” an open 4 out of 10.
