Glenn Kenny’s review of

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty on RogerEbert.com

Some films are meant to be likeable, lighthearted and entertaining, yet there’s always one in the crowd that resonates to the complete opposite of the intent. Some can express their disdain for a given work of art soundly and within the boundaries of reason. So did senior reviewer Glenn Kenny on renowned film critic, Roger Ebert’s blog in his brief and bitter evaluation of Ben Stiller’s latest directorial effort “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”.

Kenny has been a professional review writer for more than twenty years. He worked for Premiere magazine and MSN films for a brief period.

His arguments reflect more upon personal preference and taste, and less upon technical standpoints of view. His language is diplomatic, but personal.

The thing he initially condemns is the lighthearted style, to quote directly: “winsome and always self-help-book-like”.  The main reason being the loose adaptation of James Thurber’s original story. Many co-critics have frowned upon Stiller’s maneuver of turning the stereotypical lower case “loser” of Mitty into a “Winner”.

So follows a striking personal point arguing that this work is nothing more, but another parade of Stiller’s so called privileges. Enumeration follows. Looking back to “Tropic Thunder” Kenny argues this being a privilege of symbolically “biting the Hollywood hand that fed him and telling the audience that it was getting what it deserved”. In this case this film would be a flex of his ability of simply taking out a film crew to Iceland.

Kenny states that he is not entirely sure if his negative reaction comes from impressions gathered of Stiller’s previous collaboration with Wes Anderson. He draws a parallel between particular elements (ie. opening and closing credits,) of  the discussed film and the general visual style of Anderson, being full with movement. He is very preoccupied with the visual aspects and the overall credibility of the film. This piece of writing is a constant questioning, interrogation and analysis of the characters, situations and scenes, with a dark dismissal from the author’s side. Peculiar that such an ethereal work can trigger such a dark reception.