The most quietly inspiring film ever made is also the perfect Sunday evening cure for dreading the week ahead.
- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is the ultimate feel-good film for Sunday evenings.
- Ben Stiller directed and starred in this visually stunning 2013 comfort classic.
- The film was shot across Iceland, Greenland, Afghanistan, and the Himalayas.
- Its central message is simple but powerful: stop daydreaming and start actually living.
Sunday evenings have their own particular emotional weather. The weekend is winding down, the week is loading up on the horizon, and somewhere between finishing dinner and brushing your teeth, a familiar low-grade dread sets in. A 2013 survey by jobs website Monster revealed that a startling 78 percent of people suffer with Sunday night blues, caused by leaving things until the last minute and becoming overwhelmed by the tasks ahead and the dwindling time left to complete them. The antidote, it turns out, is not productivity. It is not planning. It is not a motivational podcast. It is Ben Stiller quietly walking across a glacier in Iceland to the sound of José González, and reminding you in the most gentle, unhurried way possible that your actual life is waiting for you, if you would only step into it.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty arrived in cinemas in 2013 and found its true audience over the years that followed, on streaming platforms and lazy Sunday afternoons, passed between friends as a recommendation with the caveat that it doesn’t sound like much but it will do something to you. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty invites you to escape into a world filled with charm and optimism, making it one of the most comforting films for a relaxed Sunday precisely because it is about the tension between the life we live inside our heads and the life we actually have. Walter Mitty, played by Stiller with a beautiful, understated sadness, works in the photo archives at Life magazine and has spent his entire adult life daydreaming, zoning out into elaborate fantasy sequences while the real world passes him by. The film begins with him needing to locate a missing photograph and ends with him having crossed more of the world, on foot, in improvised transport, and by sheer nerve, than he ever thought possible.
What makes the film so specifically right for a Sunday evening is its pacing. It never rushes. It lets the landscapes of Iceland breathe. It gives the silence between characters room to exist. The film features an introspective journey of self-discovery that celebrates the beauty of everyday life, with a score and visual palette that create a genuinely cosy, comforting atmosphere unlike almost anything else in its genre. Stiller, directing himself, makes the choice to treat Walter’s transformation not as a dramatic breakthrough but as a series of small, incremental acts of showing up. Getting on the helicopter. Skateboarding down the Icelandic road. Walking into the mountains. None of these moments are accompanied by swelling orchestral triumph. They are quiet, and that quietness is the whole point.
The perfect feel-good film selection is a personal one, but the films that work best for a genuinely difficult day are those that combine emotional safety with high-quality storytelling, and Walter Mitty does this better than almost anything else on a streaming platform right now. The film’s most famous line, taken from the real Life magazine motto, is worth sitting with on a Sunday night: “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.” It is not a loud message. It does not arrive with fanfare. It settles on you slowly, the way the best Sunday films do, and by Monday morning you find yourself thinking about it at your desk in a way that is more energising than any alarm or motivational reel could ever be.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is available to stream on Disney Plus and to rent across all major platforms. Put it on this Sunday evening, make something warm to drink, and let it do its quiet, steady work. Monday will still come. But you’ll meet it differently!
Director: Ben Stiller
Writer: Steve Conrad
Starring: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott, Sean Penn, Kathryn Hahn
Release Date: December 25, 2013
