If the sitcom M*A*S*H has
taught me anything about life it’s that comedy is often just a way of blocking
out the tragic reality of life. For those of you who don’t know M*A*S*H this
amazing sitcom is about an American medical outfit during the Korean War and is
comedy through and through. That being said this doesn’t mean that the main
character, Benjamin “Hawkeye” Peirce, and his colleagues aren’t affected
horribly by the blood, the death and the sheer horrors of war. For Hawkeye his
ceaseless “goofing off” and his terrible puns are just covers for how inside
the war has broken his spirit and changed him forever.
But how does this relate to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? Well I admit I got a bit side tracked talking about one of my favourite sitcoms but there is a point. Ben Stiller is a comedy actor. He was in Meet the Parents, Dodgeball and Zoolander, all popular comedies, but now the comedy has been put on hold and Stiller has undertaken a new project; The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. This new film is certainly no comedy; it’s a drama about a real person living a sub-par life who needs a push to start living. Stiller’s not the first to make that leap from comedy to drama of course there are quite a few films which are actually about people saying “yes” to life rather than wallowing in their incredible ordinariness. We had Jim Carey trading in his mask for the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 2004, Will Ferrell shaving his ‘tash and staring in Stranger than Fiction in 2006 and before Steve Carell even picked up his Freeze Ray he was in the wonderful drama Dan in Real Life in 2007.
We have all that comedy genius going into serious dramas and
for what reason? Me, I would say because of the contrast. Contrast is one of
the most important things in this world, without it we have nothing to compare
the good and the bad to. There are only so many times a comedian can make a
person laugh before he gets serious. It’s like the contrast of being drunk and
being sober; when you’re at a party and
you’ve waited just a little too long between drinks and suddenly everything
feels very real, very melancholy and you know that if you don’t have another
drink soon you’ll be stuck in that sobering down limbo for the whole night. That’s
what happens to comedians... except they like the reality. It’s refreshing.
Ben Stiller has gone
from comedy to comedy, save for the independent film Greenberg,
and frankly it must be a relief to make a film like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; a smart “real world drama” directed,
produced and starring Stiller himself. It’s intelligent in its creation,
carefully put together and helped along by a soundtrack which seamlessly melds
into the story. The plot is simple and has been done numerous times; it’s about
a man living a boring life with daydreams as his only escape. And yet it is
done in a way which feels new, his daydreams push him to live life and start
exploring a new kind of Walter Mitty. It’s a story which we all can relate to,
about seizing life and discovering that you are so much more than you gave
yourself credit for.
Walter has a life which is best described as drab, or maybe
grey, he lives in a drab apartment, in a drab building, on a drab street and
everyday goes into his drab job where the only person who appreciates him is
the wild man photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) who has never even met
Walter face to face. All this changes though when Walter has to trade in his
daydreams of heroism and adventure for the real thing and go on a globetrotting
journey to find Sean O’Connell and a missing photo negative.
What makes this film great, other than the fantastic scenery
(seriously it’s like if National Geographic
had a good story line), is the contrasting differences within the film. Without
the drab life at the beginning of the film then Walter’s vibrant transformation
would mean little, and without the icy seas of Greenland and Iceland then the
trek through the Himalaya’s would just be quite
amazing. Daydreams mean nothing without a seriously dull life to put them into
context. The drab Walter Mitty means nothing without him becoming, as Tom (Patton
Oswalt) from eHarmony puts it, a man who looks like “Indiana Jones decided to
become the lead singer of the Strokes”.
After I saw this film I asked my friend what I thought was
the most important question one can ask after seeing a film like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; did
that film make you want to change your life?
We both decided that if you can sit down and watch the whole of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and not
feel that pang of adventure then you’re either a little bit broken or, maybe if
you’re lucky, you’re already living life to its fullest. If it’s the former,
seek professional help... the story of Walter Mitty is incredible and inspiring
and I cannot imagine not wanting to skateboard down a volcano or have a shark
fight or climb the Himalaya’s after seeing it... and if it’s the latter I
should imagine you’re probably pretty pissed that you just sat down to watch a
film that’s telling you what you already know.
I couldn't recommend this film highly enough; it is funny,
clever and moving. Ben Stiller has proven himself as a high class film maker,
someone who knows exactly what he has to do to create a deep and entertaining
motion picture. And for those of you who think, “Maybe I’ll just wait for it to
come out on DVD” I feel obliged to tell you what the film told me...
“Stop dreaming. Start living.”
Not perfect advice for the Cinema/DVD dilemma but that’s
life.
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