(The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; USA 2013; Dramedy d'avventura; 114'; Produz.: Red Hour Films/Samuel Goldwyn Films/Truenorth Productions/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; Distribuz.: 20th Century Fox)
Soggetto: Tratto dal racconto breve The Secret Life of Walter Mitty scritto da James Thurber nel 1939; storia per il grande schermo di Steve Conrad. Remake di Sogni proibiti, diretto nel 1947 da Norman Z. McLeod.
Cast: Ben Stiller (Walter Mitty) Kristen Wiig (Cheryl) Sean Penn (Sean O'Connell) Kathryn Hahn (Odessa Mitty) Adam Scott (Ted Hendricks) Patton Oswalt (Todd Maher) Joey Slotnick (Amministratore della casa di riposo) Adrian Martinez (Hernando) Toshiko Onizawa (Donna d'affari) Barbara Vincent (Donna d'affari) Jon Daly (Tim Naughton) Liz Mikel (Agente TSA) Ălafur Darri Ălafsson (Il pilota) Finise Avery
Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) è un impiegato per una nota rivista che, sentendosi inadeguato nella vita ârealeâ - ed essendo anche sbeffeggiato dai colleghi - si rifugia in un personale mondo di fantasia. FinchĂŠ un giorno non si innamora di una collega e un importante negativo non viene persoâŚ
SHORT SYNOPSIS:
An office worker who lives inside fantasy worlds where he gets to live an adventurous life while romancing his co-worker sets off a global journey to fix things when both of their jobs are threatened.
Commento critico (a cura di ERMINIO FISCHETTI)
Una nuova commedia firmata e interpretata da Ben Stiller che ricalca lâessenza del nonsense dei precedenti Zoolander e Tropic Thunder e basata dal lungo racconto di James Thurber (ripubblicato da Rizzoli appositamente per lâuscita della pellicola nelle sale), giĂ fonte di unâopera con Danny Kaye degli anni Quaranta, Sogni proibiti, diretta da Norman Z. McLeod. Stiller ricalca la storia del classico personaggio quarantenne ancora solo, bistrattato sul lavoro e innamorato di una collega alla quale non riesce ad esprimere i sentimenti che prova. Walter Mitty è un sognatore, uno che crede allâamore e alla bellezza delle immagini, dâaltronde lavora da "Life", che ora sta per essere chiuso per essere tramutato in una versione esclusivamente online. Per vivere al meglio e sfuggire al grigiore della quotidianitĂ , il nostro protagonista immagina di vivere avventure fantasiose e fuori dal comune, di possedere dei superpoteri e di vivere una vita, appunto, fuori dal comune.
Lâautore costruisce una commedia fantastica che omaggia volutamente il cinema degli anni Quaranta e non solo (ci sono anche altre citazioni legate alla cultura artistica contemporanea, la piĂš evidente quella al film di Fincher, Il curioso caso di Benjamin Button) attraverso un uso del colore della fotografia molto pittorico e un tono surreale che mette in luce la straordinarietĂ di un uomo ordinario, elemento tipico del cinema del dopoguerra. Ma il meccanismo, a lungo andare, per quanto delizioso, diventa ripetitivo e soporifero, soprattutto, non trova una sua reale identitĂ filmica, che non riesce a supplire nemmeno attraverso la caratterizzazione dei personaggi, costruiti con lo stampino e bidimensionali. Lâironia e la malinconia che dovrebbero essere la forza del film, altrettanto, sono tagliate con lâaccetta, e il finale, zuccheroso e banale, delude definitivamente. Ne resta ovviamente, in quanto film hollywoodiano, la qualitĂ delle maestranze, la fotografia di Stuart Dryburgh, gli effetti speciali,
i camei di mostri sacri come Sean Penn e Shirley MacLaine. Ma a conti fatti lâoperazione delude decisamente soprattutto a causa delle sue ottime potenzialitĂ .
Secondo commento critico (a cura di PETER DEBRUGE, www.variety.com)
Sometimes daydreams do come true. At least, thatâs what the Goldwyn family must be feeling now that their long-delayed âThe Secret Life of Walter Mittyâ update finally exists, smarter and less screwball than previous attempts at the material have been. After nearly two decades of rewrites and recasting â during which Jim Carrey, Owen Wilson, Mike Myers and Sacha Baron Cohen were each attached â the role falls to Ben Stiller, who also directs. Rather than channeling James Thurberâs satirical tone, Stiller plays it mostly earnest, spinning what feels like a feature-length âJust Do Itâ ad for restless middle-aged auds, on whom its reasonably commercial prospects depend.
In the 74 years since Thurberâs short story appeared in The New Yorker, the name Walter Mitty has become synonymous with banal men who harbor delusions of heroism â which is practically the only thing Steven Conradâs script takes from the brief (two-and-a-half pages)
and virtually plotless source material. Here, Walter works in the photo department of Life magazine, which has just been acquired by a squad of bearded beancounters led by Adam Scott, tasked with overseeing the final print issue.
Though the shakeup at the magazine means that most of the staff will lose their jobs, Walterâs overnight awakening owes more to his recent crush on a new co-worker, Cheryl (Kristen Wiig). Frankly, itâs a miracle that Walter still has a job, stashed away like âOffice Spaceââs Milton at a dimly lit desk, managing camera negatives in a world where few still shoot on celluloid.
Itâs a bizarrely old-fashioned choice for this modern reimagining, considering that the real Life ceased publishing in 2000 (followed by a short revival as a weekly, Parade-style newspaper insert), but also poignant in its own way. After all, Life is precisely what Walter has been missing out on during his
16 years of faithful service, which makes the magazineâs motto â ââŚto see the world (and) things dangerous to come toâŚâ â an appropriate mantra for his first real adventure.
Tasked with tracking down the âquintessentialâ cover image from the magazineâs star photog (a perfectly cast Sean Penn, whom we already assume spends more time thrill-seeking than shaving), Walter flies to Greenland and starts jumping out of helicopters, swimming with sharks and skateboarding toward an erupting volcano â the sort of derring-do that makes his imagination look positively tame by comparison. Such activities also far outstrip anything Danny Kaye tried in the more overtly comic 1947 version, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, Sr.
But just because Stiller has access to CGI doesnât mean heâs hell-bent on using it. Naturally, vfx factor into Walterâs fantasies, including an asphalt-surfing fight sequence that would be right at home in an Avengers movie, but the action remains
mostly this side of cartoonish. If anything, the most impressive visual trick involves the picâs unique way of integrating text â from the opening credits to an SMS message â into Walterâs environment.
As far back as 1939, Thurberâs story already owed a certain debt to cinema, fading in and out of Walterâs reveries the way moving pictures did. In the time since, filmmakers have developed what might as well be called the âWalter Mitty effect,â a guaranteed laugh-getter wherein mild-mannered characters indulge an aggressive or romantic fantasy â such as attacking the boss or kissing the girl â only to snap back to reality the moment things start to get interesting.
Rather than clearly indicating each of Walterâs daydreams at the outset, Stiller allows the poor guy to drift seamlessly into his hallucinations, while slowly pumping more excitement into his daily routine over the course of the film. Early on, itâs
pretty easy to tell when a wall of the Life building crumbles away to reveal Walter as a rugged mountain climber, professing his love for Cheryl via âpoetry falcon.â However, by the time Walter finds himself thrashing in sub-zero seas, screaming as the porpoise fins close in around him, auds can scarcely distinguish where fantasy ends and reality begins.
While thereâs something wonderfully relatable about a moth who dreams of being a butterfly, Stiller seems curiously reluctant to let himself appear as drab as the nebbish demands. In Thurberâs writing, his proxies were typically ill at ease, absent-minded and hen-pecked by dominant wives (on that front, none can top Henry Fondaâs turn in âThe Male Animalâ), but thereâs virtually no trace of that personality to be found here. A gray coat does not a wallflower make, and Stiller passes up a perfectly good opportunity to let Walterâs mother (Shirley MacLaine) and
sister (Kathryn Hahn) dominate his character.
Apart from Walterâs daydreams and a running series of customer-service calls to the eHarmony online dating service (where Patton Oswalt lends amusing support), Conradâs script downplays the comedy in favor of a mellow existential crisis of the sort Cameron Crowe characters routinely suffer â not a shock coming from the sentimentalist responsible for âThe Weather Manâ and âThe Pursuit of Happyness.â Though Stiller has proven he can be much funnier (a âBenjamin Buttonâ-inspired reverse-aging fantasy suggests what might have been, reflecting the uproarious sensibility of his long-gone TV sketch series), the emotional dimension ultimately makes the film feel more substantial.
So does location shooting that lets Walterâs world travels â to Greenland, Iceland and Noshaq mountain, Afghanistan â trump his earlier fantasies, while providing backdrops that still look relatively exotic to seen-it-all auds. From a technical perspective, this is Stillerâs slickest pic yet, demonstrating creative widescreen
framing and an inspired blend of dramatic score and recent pop tunes throughout. While the confusing mix of genres and ideas might throw first-wave auds for a loop, the approach is timeless enough to hold up. Who knows? In 20 years, the death of Life might seem less outdated, and Walterâs awakening could be as profound as he imagines.
Bibliografia:
Nota: Si ringraziano Cristina Partenza, Francesco Marchetti (20th Century Fox) e Giulia Martinez.