BEN Stiller escapes into fantasy as Walter Mitty in this new comedy retelling the 1939 short story by James Thurber.
Walter Mitty is a downtrodden “negative asset manager”, tasked with processing the negatives for the prestigious Life magazine; taking care with each image, especially the work of globe-trotting photographer Sean O’Connell, played by Sean Penn.
Throughout the day, Walter ‘zones out’ and imagines declarations of love to pretty colleague Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), who seems oblivious to his existence.
Arriving for work one morning, Walter learns that the magazine is being shut down to make way for the digital revolution of Life.com.
Corporate toad Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott) is hired to oversee the ‘transition’, riding roughshod over disgruntled staff.
For the front cover of the final issue, Sean sends a special image but the negative goes astray.
“It’s a big deal,” gasps Walter’s assistant Hernando (Adrian Martinez), “you lost a Sean O’Connell!”
Reluctantly, Walter abandons his mother Edna (Shirley MacLaine) and sister Odessa (Kathryn Hahn) to embark on a life-altering quest to track down Sean in the icy wilderness of Greenland.
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