The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is Straight Out of the Imagination

Ben Stiller is almost always hit or miss for me.  Sometimes he knocks it out of the park and other times his roles feel forced or too artificial.  That is not the case in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  The film was spectacular and was laugh out loud funny with imaginative explosions that keep the viewer questioning reality.  Walter is someone all of us can relate to.  Literally everyone who has ever worked a boring 9-5 and yearned for more can relate to Walter’s bouts of severe daydreaming and his constant desire to live a more exciting and fulfilling life.  Ironically employed by LIFE magazine, Walter works in the dark basement photo department meticulously cutting, trimming, and organizing the magazines photos as their negative assets manager; a very important job which goes completely unnoticed by the corporate big wigs upstairs.  Walter constantly imagines himself in distant lands on crazy adventures or wooing the girl of his dreams (played by Kristin Wigg) by scaling frozen mountain peaks or saving the day from certain destruction.  And yet he is always brought back to reality by whoever notices Walter “zoning out” and staring off into space (which happens often).  His life takes an unexpected turn however when he receives a packet of photos from famed photojournalist Sean O’Connell who informs him that negative #25 captures the “quintessence” of life and should be used for the cover of the magazines upcoming final print issue.  The only problem is that #25 is missing and Walter knows that it will mean his job if he can’t locate it.  Walter assumes the only way to find the negative is to find Sean, his adventurous hero who he’s gotten to know purely through his letters and photos.  Walter uses clues from the other negatives and embarks on a journey to find Sean.  Along the way he ends up doing what he has always dreamed of, living life to its absolute fullest.  Breaking out of his comfort zone and taking risks for the first time ever Walter realizes that his dreams are not so out of reach and that life can truly be as magical and awe inspiring as he’s always imagined.  Everyone who watches this film will no doubt see some of themselves in Walter Mitty.  We can all relate to wanting more out of life and wishing we could take off to far corners of the world on crazy adventures.  What makes the movie so special is that Walter decides to just do it.  He pulls the proverbial trigger and makes us all believe that we can make our dreams come true.