BY JOE REID |
'Secret Life of Walter Mitty' Trailer Features a Song By Jose Gonzalez and St. Vincent
At the intersection of movie trailers and music, what does the new track from Jose Gonzalez and St. Vincent tell us about Ben Stiller’s long-in-the-making cinematic fantasy?
There's always so much to unpack about a movie trailer: the stars, the plot, how much of the plot is being totally given away. But in many cases, the part of the trailer that sticks with you the longest is the music. Be it a pop song or a piece or orchestral score, it's the music that most often makes a trailer.
This Week's Trailer: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, specifically the second, full-length trailer, after the very buzzy and successful first trailer. We talked about that one here, and about the Of Monsters and Men song “Dirty Paws” that felt like such a perfect fit for a story of globe-hopping wish-fulfillment.
This Week's Tune(s): It’s brand new, and as of just yet we’re not sure of the title (update: it's called "Step Out"), but it’s a new track from Jose Gonzalez and St. Vincent. Gonzalez is contributing vocals to the film’s score, and this particular song lends the second half of this new trailer the necessary soaring lilt.
How Literal Is It? The phrase “step outside” is repeated a bunch, which certainly applies to Stiller’s character, a humble photo-asset manager at Life magazine who longs for a life of adventure and impressive feats.
How Emotional Is It? It’s very inspirational, if you’re looking for music to jog to the top of a hill with. Both Gonzalez and a background-vocalizing St. Vincent have voices that are both haunting and propulsive, and there’s something sweeping to the way the song seems to push the cinematic action along.
How Definitive Is It? It’s supposedly brand new, so I think for the moment, it still has “definitive” locked down on this one.
Overall Trailer Tune Effectiveness: The shorter, punchier teaser is still the superior clip, but combining the Of Monsters and Men song with this new Jose Gonzalez tune is a happy enough marriage of music intended to echo across chilly Scandanavian shorelines, which is pretty much exactly what this film needs.