Movie Review: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

You gotta love a pleasant surprise during the holiday season.

With so many dark and dreary films ruling the marketplace right now, it was so refreshing to see a thoughtful, amusing and pleasant film hit theaters. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is one of those films that is so infectiously upbeat that you can't help but leave the theater with a giant smile on your face.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a very straightforward film. The lack of depth isn't a knock on it all, its simplicity is actually something to marvel. The plot roped me in and I bought into characters right off the bat. It doesn't matter how complex the story or characters are, as you long as you care about what happens to them and Walter Mitty absolutely succeeds at that.

The film has a simple message: Go out and live your life to the fullest. The character of Walter Mitty (played with inherit likability by Ben Stiller, who also directs) is a quiet, reserved guy who works as a negative assets manager at Life magazine. Mitty often has vivid daydreams to break up the monotony of his life and yearns for some real-world excitement. When he goes on the journey to find a missing negative from illusive, globe-traveling photographer Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn) that is supposed to appear on the cover of Life's final issue, Mitty has an authentic adventure and finds himself in the process. It's a simple yet very effective message that is beautifully conveyed over the entirety of the film.

Aside from it's big heart, the strongest point of Walter Mitty is the stunning cinematography. About half of the film was shot in Iceland, which has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. The landscapes are just so stunning and they just pop right off the screen each time they're shown. One scene, in particular, where Mitty is longboarding in the Icelandic countryside with all of the mountains in the background is absolutely breathtaking to watch. The beauty of Iceland as a backdrop for so many pivotal scenes further adds to the strength of this film's strong message. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is the single biggest surprise of 2013 for me and is exactly the kind of charming, feel-good fare you want to see to around the holidays.

4/5 Stars