Ninth grade English sucked for me, which is quite the feat considering I grew up to become an English teacher. My teacher, however, looked like the Penguin (not the animal...Oswald Cobblepot...Batman's villain?) and attempted to bilk me out of hundreds of points that I earned because...well, I'm not quite sure. Anyway, one of the things I remember is reading a short story called "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Ninth grade seemed to be the year for amazing short stories like this one, along with "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Most Dangerous Game." This one stuck with me though, so much that I kept reading stories by the author, James Thurber, long after. Ben Stiller's film adaptation of "Walter Mitty" is lovely, in a word, and highlights everything beautiful about the story while writing different love letters to so many other things and expounding on this tiny world that Thurber created.
The title character is, to say the least, a nothing. He works at Life Magazine in the basement, archiving and keeping track of photos. For those of you who don't know, or have forgotten, "Life" was heavily built on photos. The articles were secondary. The magazine was all about going to the places people couldn't go and showing them what they would never have a chance to see, all while showing us that life, no matter who or where you are, is similar.
The movie begins with the news that Life is closing its doors and publishing its last issue. This coincides with the fact that Walter can't seem to catch the e-dating eye of his crush and co-worker, played subtly and wonderfully by Kristen Wiig, and being sent the final shots for Life by a famous photographer, played by Sean Penn. When the photographer talks up a certain frame for the final issue's cover, Walter can't find it, sending him on the crux of the film: a hyper-fantasized journey to find his courage and discover what Life...and life...is really about.
What start out as fantastic sequences that are clearly all part of Walter's life eventually become blurry as to their authenticity. Is he really doing these things? Did he really travel all over the world hunting for this missing photo? Or, as we see in the beginning, is it just Walter "zoning out?"
In the end, the movie is so beautiful, I couldn't care less. This film looks amazing, says so much in such a small package and will have you wondering what your life is truly like. Check it out if you can.
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