A movie that I don’t think got enough attention was Ben Stiller’s 2013 adaptation of James Thurber’s 1939 story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
The source material is a short story, and barely long enough to qualify as that. It’s less a story than an idea for a character: a dreamer whose drab life makes him retreat further and further into his imagination.
Stiller’s film fills the title character out by giving him a backstory, a goal, and a complete story arc. It also, in a clever way, makes a character out of the time elapsed between the release of the original Thurber work and the 2013 film. Mitty, in the film, works in the photographic archives of Time magazine; a non-digital arm of a 20th-Century medium, on the brink of major layoffs.
For Mitty, for the company where he works, for all of us, the question is: as the future comes towards us at break-neck speed, what parts of the past are worth preserving? Which elements of our past are preventing us from growing, and which are foundations upon which we can build? It tackles these questions all while being considerably funny, visually beautiful, and steering reasonably clear of goopy sentimentality.
Plus it’s got a good soundtrack, including music by José Gonzàlez’ first band, Junip.
While this particular track wasn’t on that soundtrack, Junip’s music fits Stiller’s film because it has a way of sounding indie and widescreen at the same time. It’s epic but understated, and it steers reasonably clear of goopy sentimentality.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The drum pattern. Five anxious kick drum hits on consecutive sixteenth notes, followed by one chilled-out rim hit.
2. The bass and guitar build tension by moving in opposite directions.
3. Like Walter Mitty, the song deals with a character who is on the brink of something, but who struggles to make the important decision. “She feels she needs to leave / To avoid a messy aftermath / Alone between lines of anguished needs / Rearranged to allow a newborn path.”
Recommended listening activity:
Indulging a daydream.