"...the person who walked into the building for the first time didn’t like himself and the person who’s walking out for the last time does."
I think the reason I love film so much is because I see it as the quintessential way of communicating the human experience. No other art form is able to combine the visual and auditory experience of movies and truly be able to tell a story to its fullest capability.
When I think back on my life, I can tie a specific movie to each era of my youth. When I was a really young, it was the Pixar movies. Just like me, the movies were full of color and limitless imagination. When I moved into elementary school, of course, it was the “Star Wars” movies that I would constantly cling to because they were able to spark my imagination in a new way. In middle school, when I first started to look into film as an artform, it was “The Shawshank Redemption” that really made me understand the potential of what artform could do. But in high school, the one movie that keeps playing over and over in my head is “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”
It’s not a perfect movie. It’s not a cinematic marvel or modern day Godfather or anything like that. But it’s able to speak to me and so many people I know on a personal level.
I think I can definitely put freshman year me into Walter Mitty’s shoes. Both of us were inactive in our own lives and had shut ourselves in a box. Walter constantly daydreams about fantastical situations to distract himself from the monotony of his own life. Meanwhile, I dreaded going to school every day because of my social ineptitude. Like Walter, I let life happen to me instead of living my life. Through both of our experiences, we were able to grow out of our character flaws. We both made decisions to take control of our own lives and put ourselves out there. Yes, Walter may have climbed Mt. Everest and ran from an active volcano while I just went through high school, but nonetheless, our journey of personal growth is the same. As a result, both of us were able to fully live up to our own potential as human beings.
Ultimately, “Walter Mitty” is a movie about change. We are responsible for our own personal growth. No one else can do it for us. It’s not easy, and it’s not going to happen overnight. But at the end of the day, only you can change yourself for the better.
Looking back, if there is one thing I’m proud about during my time at The King’s Academy High School, it’s not the grades I made, not the sports I played or not even the friends I gained. It’s the fact that the person who walked into the building for the first time didn’t like himself and the person who’s walking out for the last time does.