YMMV / The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

• Adaptation Displacement: Derived at considerable length from a 1939 short story by James Thurber, which had already been loosely adapted into a film starring Danny Kaye in 1947.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: There were in fact Air Greenland flights between Baltimore and Greenland for about a year in 2007 and 2008, which is close to the time the movie presumably takes place. So it's not entirely implausible that Walter could have taken that flight.
• Awesome Music:
  • The first trailer uses Of Monsters and Men "Dirty Paws" to great effect, and the film uses sections of it during the Iceland bike ride (fitting, considering the band members are Icelandic).
  • All of the film's songs by José González fit, but especially "Step Out" and "Stay Alive".
  • The use of Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" when Walter finally decides to fly to Greenland to find Sean.
  • Hey, the Space Oddity scene counts too!
  • "Far Away", used during the skateboarding scene.
• Critical Dissonance: Seems to be received far more positively by viewers than critics, as seen on Metacritic.
• Hard-to-Adapt Work: The original short story takes place almost entirely in the title character's head, using it as a contrast against his miserably boring real life. It's also very much a short story too, with only a handful of scenarios playing out under a very mundane Framing Device of running errands. This might be good for a half-hour anthology show episode, but making it into a feature-length film is difficult without massive expansion. Both the Danny Kaye and Ben Stiller movies thusly have next to nothing to do with the original story besides the daydreaming aspect.
• Memetic Mutation: The name Walter Mitty has entered the public lexicon to describe fantasists from all walks of life. In military parlance in particular, it's used as an insult to describe Phony Veterans.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Sean Penn only appears onscreen as Sean O'Connell for one scene, but it's by far one of the most powerful and important moments in the entire film.
  • Similarly, after being nothing more than The Voice for two thirds of the movie, Todd Mahar finally appears in person to help bail Walter out of airport security in a scene that is both funny and reflective of Walter's Character Development.
• Vindicated by History: The movie was met with mediocre reviews from critics when it first came out but has since become a modern Cult Classic, with many praising its inspirational feel-good elements, gorgeous scenery, and Ben Stiller's direction and lead performance. The amusing Fantasy Sequences also certainly helped.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The film is about a man who daydreams to help him get out of his everyday problems, so it must be for kids, right? Wrong! It contains some swearing, drinking, sex jokes, a building catching on fire, and the main character going to Afghanistan and getting arrested for it. The film wound up with a PG rating, and little kids still saw it despite the scenes mentioned.

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