Daydream Believer: Christmas Release Makes Fantasies Come True!

The new film by renowned comedy genius Ben Stiller is set to hit theaters on Christmas Eve. This time, he reinterprets James Thurber’s short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” from a contemporary perspective—a timeless piece that captures the irresistible magic of daydreaming and is hailed as one of the most influential fantasy stories of all time. Stiller takes that classic 2.5-page 1939 story and transforms it into a 21st-century comedic epic, following a man whose mundane reality begins to make his wild daydreams come true.

“The driving forces behind the dreams hidden in our hearts are always mysterious... until one day, that power inspires and influences our real lives.” That’s the concept this film aims to tell and remind its viewers. Walter Mitty (played by Ben Stiller) is a modern-day daydream expert, an ordinary photo editor at a magazine, stuck in a dull job, often escaping into fantastical worlds where he imagines himself as a hero, living passionate romances, and constantly conquering dangers. But when Mitty and his secret crush (played by Kristen Wiig) actually face the threat of losing their jobs, he has to do something he never thought he would: he actually takes action—thus setting off a globe-trotting adventure even more thrilling than his wildest daydreams.

           For Stiller, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rethink a quintessentially American story from a fresh and different era. He first read Thurber’s story in high school. This short, powerful piece caused a huge stir when it was first published in The New Yorker. The story was adapted into a popular comedy film in the 1940s and countless stage productions since then, also giving rise to the phrase “he’s a Walter Mitty,” used to describe anyone who loves to daydream but doesn’t live seriously.

Now, Stiller sees the chance to bring Thurber’s detached daydreamer into a more complex modern reality—whether it’s social dynamics, corporate layoffs, self-improvement, and more—and infuses his story with stronger elements of comedy, drama, and cinema, enhanced by the visual spectacle modern filmmaking technology can offer.

“I love this story because you can’t categorize it,” Stiller said. “It has comedic elements, it’s a drama, it’s an adventure, and it’s both real and fantastically surreal. Yet at its core, it’s about a character we can all relate to—a guy who seems to be just getting by, but lives a completely different life in his imagination. I think he represents all the things we imagine about ourselves and the world—the parts we’ve never spoken out loud.”

As a director, he has earned critical acclaim for his sharp and lovable unique comedic style, seen in his satirical fashion-world hit Zoolander and his successful spoof on action movie fandom and friendship, Tropic Thunder. With his new film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Stiller pushes himself both in front of and behind the camera to places he’s never been before. The movie instantly becomes his most visually daring and emotionally powerful work to date.

 

This film faithfully echoes the immortal allegorical story by American humorist James Thurber, which tells of a mild-mannered man forced to transform his real-life frustrations into astonishing fantasies. However, Stiller’s version of Mitty is a true modern man. Like most of us, he struggles to adapt to an increasingly disconnected, digital world and rapid changes. His way of life feels outdated. His only escape is through a series of grandiose daydreams, where he’s a fearless hero living for a better, fairer world. But this has always been his private world, never shared with others... until one day, while trying to recover a lost negative from a famous photographer (played by Sean Penn), he unexpectedly opens a dialogue with another world.