"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" & My Inner Child

An underrated, earnest gem

SPOILER WARNING

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” has been a guilty pleasure movie of mine for a long time. I saw it when it came out in 2013, and I was 10 years old. I instantly loved it. It became a common movie watched in my house, particularly among my brothers and me. Its sense of adventure, comedy and heart spoke to me from that young age.

A few weeks ago, my family decided to watch the movie again for the first time in quite awhile. Since my last watch I had become more critical, more interested in film, and admittedly, more pretentious. So, I was a little nervous about how this movie would hold up. I knew it did not have particularly good critical scores and was not considered the masterpiece I remembered it to be. I didn’t want a cherished movie to be ruined for me.

However, that is not what happened. I was once again captured by the genuine heart of this movie. I can admit that it is cheesy, a little heavy-handed, and rife with product placement, but it has the same undeniable charisma that I remember from childhood.

There is something that hits every time about watching someone open themself up to the world and begin to heal from something they’ve been holding on to. At face value, this movie is silly, but I think that silliness is what makes it so special. In a time in which it seems like movies take themselves so seriously, it’s nice to kick back and watch something that knows its goofy but still has something to say.

I tend to be too serious and get caught up in the larger meanings of things. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” tells you exactly what it is without overcomplicating anything. It’s a movie for any season of life or any mood. It has moments of humor, sadness, hope, and joy. It has compassion for all of its characters and lets you love them.

At the end of the day, it might not be a masterpiece. However, in the age of irony, it has something that seems increasingly harder to come by — earnestness.

That quality will keep me and many others coming back time after time, no matter what critics say. I will always visit “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” as a time capsule of my unpretentious childhood self, filled with awe and hope, believing in the good inside everyone.