Air
Though your true names are Jose Alcantara, Rodrigo Sepulveda, Seba Alon, Miguel Baez-Olavarria, Daniel Marinado Orellana, Antonio Molina, Martin Lagos, and Andres Quezada, I refer to you by your stage name in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a comedy that accordingly explores the fine line between the fictional and real. The movie also celebrates underdogs, mind you, so who better address this letter to than you? Your short-lived performance embodied the humor with which the film tackles difficult issues, and marked a turning point in the movie's plot.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, directed by and starring Ben Stiller as Walter Mitty, is based on a 1930s American short story about an insecure man who escapes the mundane through daydreaming. The novella was first made into a film in the 1940s, and now Hollywood has provided this 21st century adaptation in which Mitty is a forlorn middle-aged space cadet who works for Life magazine in New York.
Mitty's boss (Adam Scott) bullies him; he pines after a co-worker (Kristen Wiig) he dare not ask out. Moreover, 'Life' is undergoing a series of tough changes: the magazine is going strictly online, publishing its last issue, and downsizing its staff. When things seem like they couldn't get worse, Mitty loses the negative for the last issue's cover photo.
Desperate to save his job, and longing to break free from a colorless life, Mitty resolves to find the cover picture's photographer (Sean Penn) to retrieve the lost negative. The photographer's a daredevil who's always on the go, so Mitty must travel the world to find him.
Enter horny Chilean sailors. You dock in a remote port in Iceland at the same time as Mitty, who's searching for his photographer. But you're searching for the nearest strip-joint. In the port, a lone bicycle offers the only means of transportation. You charge for the bike, emboldened by your voracious sexual appetites, but Mitty grabs it first and rides off, emboldened by his desire to live a meaningful life.
Up until this point, Mitty was a fainthearted character. But racing horny Chilean sailors, and winning, inadvertently reignites his desire to sink his teeth into life. Your scene embodies the humorous way The Secret Life of Walter Mitty depicts how a depressed individual comes into his own, but it also highlights the important role that underdogs play in shaping outcomes in life. Indeed, that's one of the movie's messages: everybody counts; everybody has a part to play in the larger scheme of things… whether you're a horny Chilean sailor who's just come back from sea or a middle-aged geek who's looking for adventure.
In its subplot, the movie addresses hard topics like coping with a loved one's death, or with debilitating insecurity; but it does so in a light-hearted inspirational way. By way of example, as I exited the movie theatre, a man and woman from the crowd in front of me were playfully spanking each other, which spoke volumes about the film's uplifting effect. I can't imagine playful spanks after Dancer in the Dark or Schindler's List.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a finely executed Hollywood comedy with your typical blend of action, romance, and a moralistic happy ending. There's nothing particularly brilliant about it; but it's not too shabby either. With strong performances, nice scenery, and a solid soundtrack with songs by the likes of David Bowie and Arcade Fire, the movie holds its own.
There's just one major discrepancy: the movie urges viewers to live life to the fullest, yet to see the film you have to sit inactively for hours on end in a dark cinema, living vicariously through improbable fictional characters. While Walter Mitty transforms into a man of action on screen, viewers are transform into Mitty's former self, dreaming life away…
Perplexed,
Katherine
