If you love Severance, you need to watch this underrated Ben Stiller & Adam Scott movie

Almost 10 years before Severance Season 2, Ben Stiller and Adam Scott worked together on a wonderful, uplifting movie about uprooting yourself and daring to live the dream. It’s called The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and you need to watch it. 

Severance has an extraordinary concept: what if you could ‘sever’ your existence between work and… well, everything else? You clock in, and a second later, you clock out; the tedious, perhaps even insufferable part of your day over in the blink of an eye, no longer working to live. 

It’s almost appealing – and that’s where the devious, sobering genius of the series comes in (courtesy of Dan Erickson’s heart-aching writing and Stiller’s clinical, inspired direction). 

However, its DNA also dates back to a humble, underrated 2013 movie that’s almost anti-Lumon in its philosophy. It urges you to step through the door, float in a most peculiar way, and see how the stars may look very different today.

What is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty about? 

The movie follows Walter Mitty (Stiller), a lonely negative assets manager at Life magazine. He’s also a chronic daydreamer, imagining incredible, outlandish escapades that often culminate in him swooping the girl of his dreams – Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), one of his coworkers – off her feet. 

When he’s not being antagonized by the magazine’s online transition manager (Adam Scott), he collates pictures taken by Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn), a famous photojournalist. 

When a negative that captures the “quintessence of life” (his words, not mine) goes missing, Walter sets off on a trans-Atlantic journey to find it, leading him into shark-infested waters, skating around the Icelandic countryside, and the Himalayas. It’s more than a work trip: it’s an odyssey to liberate a soul desperate for adventure – and purpose. 

Why Severance fans need to watch it

Stiller’s directorial style is all over The Secret Life to Walter Mitty; forensic compositions, dreary yet bright interiors that evoke the permanence of the Backrooms, and – especially after Episode 4’s ORTBO – the daunting wonder of the outdoors (there’s even frosty landscapes, so Dieter Eagan’s fourth appendix may be hiding somewhere). 

It’s also a remarkable heel-turn from Scott, playing a loathsome pr*ck with a chiseled beard with one of the most punchable auras I’ve ever experienced on the big screen. If you’ve been watching Season 2, you’ll notice another familiar face: Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Mr Drummond), who plays a drunken helicopter pilot in Greenland. 

20th Century Studios

I could harp on about the beauty and ambition of the craft, and the ending (prepare to feel a single tear-drop trickling past the edge of your grin), but that speaks for itself when you watch it. What I really want to hit home is why it’s a perfect accompaniment to Severance: they’re about the same thing. 

Walter may not have lost his wife in a car accident and discovered she’s alive and hidden in the labyrinth of a cult-like corporation, nor could the film be classified as a sci-fi movie or even a dystopian thriller. 

But, like Mark, Walter is a man who’s compromised his life and convinced himself it’s what he deserves; he imprisons himself in a solitary, unhappy routine while his mind (and his heart) never hesitates to dream a bigger dream than the day before. He cowers to the jabs of the douches around him and imagines a world where he fights back. 

The Walter at the start of the film is a specter of his own anxiety, just as Mark’s Outie is every stage of grief distilled into a waking, sad person. Severance isn’t quite there (yet), but The Secret Life of Walter Mitty dares to make a man whole; he finds the key to his own shackles and peeks beyond the horizon – but in doing so, he appreciates the “quintessence of life” all around him, home or away. 

“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.”

How to watch The Secret Life of Walter Mitty 

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is available to buy or rent digitally via Amazon Prime and other on-demand platforms. You can also purchase it on DVD or Blu-ray. 

In the meantime, keep our Severance Season 2 release schedule bookmarked, find out how to watch Season 2 for free, and read more about the Lexington Letter. You should also check out our guides on Cold Harbor, Asal Reghabi, and the Glasgow Block, and if you want to refresh your memory, we have recaps of Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, and Episode 5.