Based off of a 1939 short story, Walter Mitty is directed by and stars Ben Stiller in the title role, a man who can't help but dream of great adventure, brave heroics and that special someone who works in his office at Life Magazine named Cheryl (Kristen Wiig) but when a negative goes missing Walter vows to track it down, even if it means going to the ends of the Earth.
I went into Walter Mitty with fairly optimistic expectations as the preview for the film made it look like a nice film and something that I would enjoy at least, was I right to be optimistic?
Very much so as I really loved watching this film, Stiller's performance and direction are pitched at just the right note so that he delineates between the dreams and the reality, Wiig is actually pretty good here as well as the girl next door and Patton Oswalt is a lot of fun as well.
But what I really loved about this film was its story, it was nice to see a film that values story and heart and imagination in a way that old fashioned films used to do and this one blends the three together very well so that you find one or all of these in the film if you look as it can be very easy to dismiss it as sentimental fluff, the film also reminded me a lot of the Dead Poets Society in terms of its message of living deep and sucking all the marrow out of life and those scenes of adventure are truly special to watch.
One last area where I have to complement Stiller is the soundtrack, when a song comes on during the film it feels nicely matched to the scene it's under which to me is the mark of someone with a fantastic ear for using songs in a film and lord knows I haven't been a big fan of his since There's Something About Mary but here I complement him greatly for the film that he's made.
And so, I was very taken with the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, it was funny, heartfelt and imaginative, definitely one of my favorite films of the year and absolutely worth checking out, 4 and a half out of 5.
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