The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty Analysis Movie Review Samples

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was a film directed by Ben Stiller. It is worth noting that he is also the lead actor and producer of the film. It is based on the best-selling book The Secret Life of Walter Mitty authored by James Thurber. The objective of this paper is to look at the story of how Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) gave meaning to the various objects scenes that can be found and watched (respectively) in the movie. This theatrical analysis will focus on two things: the meanings and story and plot analysis.
When it comes to the meaning, the author of this paper argues that the movie revolved around the concept of life. It is remarkable to note that the name of the company where Walter Mitty and the other main characters in the story worked was Life, a publishing company that is mainly responsible for the regular release of Life Magazine. In it, Mitty was a negative assets manager. Basically, he is in charge of taking shots and photos and objects and events that can be featured in the magazine. Needless to say, he is one of the main assets of the company. It can be argued that the future of the company heavily relies on his creativity to take shots, ones that have meaning, especially ones the magazine readers look at them. After all, that was something the real life Magazine was known for.
Unfortunately, the story was set during the harsh economic times for magazine publication companies like Life and that is why everyone was expecting a serious downsizing over the next few weeks. Mitty, being a mere negative assets manager, feared that he would lose his job. The last thing he wanted himself to make was a mistake that would make him hot in the eyes of the layoff trigger-happy executives from the management.
Basically, the situation or setting where Walter Mitty was put in was not an exactly pleasant one. If anything, the best thing that a rational person would want to do is to escape. This was the perfect setup for one of the meanings or central themes of the film to be displayed: versions of reality. It can be argued that one of the film’s central messages is to suggest that people may have the tendency to have their own version of reality. In the case of Walter Mitty, he had two versions of it: the real and the alternate one.
In reality (the one where he works as the negative assets manager for Life), he is this passive, inept, and ordinary man who could not care less about what other people around think about him, one who is so dedicated to his job, and one who frequently spaces out in order for him to visit his alternate reality. In his fantasy world, he is this adventurous and law-breaking man. It is important to note, however, that the alternate reality part in the film may not necessarily be one (i.e. an alternate reality)—it may also be part of what was really happening.
It all depends on how the viewer would interpret it. In this case the author wants to consider it as an alternate reality because 1) it is too good to be real considering how the personality of Walter Mitty was portrayed in the initial scenes and 2) because it is simply rare, if not impossible, for a normal person to have two exactly opposite types of personality.
So since this fact has already been established, the most important question here would be what is the purpose or meaning of the presence of two realities for Mitty? The meaning should be to show to the audience how people tend to dream about their perfect or ideal life only to end up living the exact opposite of that type of life. It is to show the rampant culture of double standards. This can be evidenced by three things that can be easily observed from the movie.
Firstly, Mitty knew to himself that he is in love with one of his coworkers from Life named Cherry. Unfortunately, he did not have the confidence and guts to approach her because he was portrayed in the film as a person with a low level of self-esteem. In his alternate reality, he is this confident and adventurous man who seem to not only be unwilling but also incapable of taking no for an answer; it is also in this reality where he and Cherry were actually (or rather supposedly) having a good time. Secondly, in his alternate reality, he was going on adventures; he was living the life. In reality, he was in a problematic situation. He did not even know when exactly he was going to lose his job or when he would be able to find the perfect images for the last edition of the Life Magazine.
The perfect meaning that the film offered, based on the evidences that have been presented, is the great irony of life and most people’s tendencies to have double standards. They are well aware of the existence of problems. In the case of Walter Mitty, he was also aware of the nature of his problem, its causes. The worst part is that he also knew about the changes he had to make in order to make the necessary changes to solve those problems (case in point, he knew he had to be more courageous and confident in order to win Cherry’s heart), but he did not do anything about it. He just succumbed into his daydreaming sickness instead of focusing on what was real.
The flow of the story and plot was based on a mixture of literal and metaphorical ideas. For example, in the scene where O’Connell, the person whom Mitty was with in his alternate reality, instructed Mitty to look inside, he was actually pertaining to the actual act of looking inside the envelope to lead Mitty in his quest—something which was highly uncommon. All in all, however, the flow of the story and the plot supports the argument being presented in this paper that suggests that the movie was all about the real meaning of life and the most common issues that people have with it.
Basically, what the author of this paper did was to answer the question “what meaning was offered” by the movie by picking out the conflict-ridden scenes from the plot or story, analyzing the narrative, scenes, and cinematography of the story. To summarize, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is one of the life-significant movies ever released out there. It tackles one of the most taken for granted issues in society today.
The narrative of the story is not exactly unique. It is a given that the film itself is set in different locations. This was, however, needed in order to make a point about the alternative characteristic of Mitty, the one who is more outgoing an adventurous. The more important question, however, is whether this cinematographic strategy yielded significant results as far as the delivery of the central theme or meaning is concerned. The answer is it contributed very little to it. There are numerous ways how the central meaning can be portrayed without having to rely on these expensive cinematographic effects. If one considers the fact that it is something needed for the last edition of Life Magazine though, plus the truth that such expensive image searches for a magazine cover and content indeed happens in real life, this style of portrayal and cinematography may be justified.
In terms of the audio and visual editing and effects, the consensus is that it complemented the flow of the story, narrative, and scenes well. The film’s mood was a mixture of adventure, action, and a little bit of suspense (although the first two were the dominant moods). The audio and visual editing and effects helped establish and set those moods in.
Each and every person living in this planet has their own set of problems; they have two choices on how they are going to face their problems. They can either face it like a man and stick with what is really happening or choose to escape reality and let themselves fall into the double-standard syndrome and just daydream about solving the problem without actually doing it.
In the movie’s case, Mitty was able to do both, lucky for him. He was able to babble in day dreams and still get away with it (not suffering from consequences) in the end. He was able to find the perfect images for the front cover of the last edition of Life Magazine; he was able to sort most if not all things out in his life.