The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Gosh, where to start! Although it got only 50% on the Tomatometer, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was a really good movie, in my opinion. It blends high adventure with daydreams in such a way that sometimes you don't know what's real and what's not.
The Story (Spoilers, duh.)
Walter Mitty arrives to the Life and Time building one Monday morning to hear that Life is migrating into a website-only company, and that the month's issue will be the last. Upon entering his office, he finds a gift from an old contact of his: A roll of negatives, a leather wallet bearing the Life slogan, and a handwritten message saying that negative #25 is probably his best photo yet. Upon closer examination of the roll, Walter finds that negative #25 is missing. He also discovers that his contact had sent a telegram (you read that correctly, a telegram) to his boss saying that negative 25 should be on the cover of the last issue of Life. Under pressure from his boss, Walter searches for clues to his contact's wherabouts, determining he must be somewhere in Greenland. Walter sets off to find him, planning to ask him for the negative he'd obviously accidentally left out. After jumping from a drunk pilot's helicopter into shark-infested waters, biking almost fifteen kilometers to an exploding volcano, and let's not forget skateboarding downhill for at least 5 km, he receives an urgent text message from a co-worker, telling him that he'll be fired if Walter doesn't show up to work as soon as possible. Walter gets on the first plane back, and goes to work the next morning. Outraged that Walter doesn't have the negative, he fires him. Returning to his mother's home, he throws out the wallet he got earlier, it only reminds him of failed expeditions and the loss of his job. He sits down on the couch facing the piano, and begins examining an abstract-looking photo his contact had sent in the roll which was supposed to contain #25. Soon, he realizes that the photo lines up exactly with the edge of the piano sitting right in front of him! He questions his mother, and she tells him that the man came to her house, and asked about Walter's work schedule and took a couple photos. His mom also tells him that he was going to Afghanistan for his next photo shoot. Walter promptly hops on a plane to Afghanistan to find him, and after a lengthy hike, being slapped repeatedly with a branch, and being abandoned by his hiking crew (squad, bunch, whatever) he finds the man who neglected to send him the photo. Upon questioning him on the whereabouts of the picture, the man informs him that he'd placed negative 25 into the wallet. The same wallet Walter had thrown out in anguish. Back home it is, without the negative. Where, after selling his mom's piano, she gives him the wallet he'd thrown into her trash a few days ago. "I always keep all your knick-knacks." Walter returns triumphantly to the Life and Time building to meet his disgruntled boss. He hands him the negative, without ever looking at it. Later, the last issue of Life comes out, with the negative that Walter had spent the last two weeks travelling the world to find.
I'd rate this movie four of five stars.
