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About Schmidt

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Jack Nicholson shines in his sensitive, tour de force performance as Warren Schmidt, the vice president of an insurance company who finds retirement anything but fulfilling. In fact, his world starts to crumble in short order, along with his relationships, his priorities and his very sanity. A superficial reading would pigeonhole Schmidt as Willy Loman retread, minus the heart condition, but Alexander Payne plumbs deeper emotional currents with this wonderful film - the sort of film that reminds you why you go to movies in the first place. To the director's credit, the film never crosses the line (so common in today's Hollywood "output") of ridiculing its characters and their sensibilities. Make no mistake: Midwestern middle-class values go under the magnifying glass, but just when the viewer starts to feel superior, zing! Payne pulls you back from the brink, and you find yourself caring deeply about Warren Schmidt and his universal predicament. The editing, the supporting cast (especially Kathy Bates), and the cinematography are well-nigh perfect, which allow Nicholson to soar. The layers of his character, a man who sees the truth but dares not express it to the people closest to him, come to a boil of mixed emotions of anger, fear and despair by the film's last scenes and transcendent finale.

This film is about Warren Schmidt, a Nebraskan in his mid sixties, who is newly retired from his job as assistant vice president for an insurance firm. He is clearly a man who is not in touch with his feelings or his life, living it by the book, so to speak. He is disconnected from the reality around him, living as unobtrusively as he can. This is evident right from the beginning of the film.

His life really begins when he retires, as a series of life jarring changes occur. His wife of forty two years, Helen (June Squibb), suddenly dies. She is a domineering woman whom he loved on some level but for whom he was unable to express much feeling while she was still living, even though there were many things about her that irritated him. She, however, managed to have had a secret life of which he had not been a part. It seems that she was not all that satisfied with Schmidt, herself. It is an unwelcome surprise that colors his world when he discovers it but, at the same time, serves to begin to ease the pain of separation for him. There are some funny scenes that segue from this discovery.

Their only child, Jeannie (Hope Davis), lives in Denver, Colorado and is about to get married to Randall Hertzel (Dermot Mulroney), a dimwitted, waterbed salesman whom Schmidt cannot abide. He learns some truths about the real status of his own relationship with his daughter, Jeannie, and it is not the idealized relationship that he thought he had. In fact, he learns just how disconnected he is from his daughter, who is really a veritable stranger to him, as was his wife. Moreover, not even his best friend, Ray (Lou Cariou), was whom Schmidt thought him to be.

When Schmidt travels to Colorado for the wedding, he stays with the groom's mother, Roberta Hertzel, a much married, earthy, and passionate divorcee, who is comfortable with herself and not afraid to express her feelings. She is a sort of flower child/earth mother holdover from the late nineteen sixties, early seventies. She tries to make a connection with him but this proves to be too much for Schmidt, as he scurries for cover to the Winnebago in which he travels.

Lacking an emotional connection with any other human being, Schmidt sponsors a six year old, Tanzanian child through a charitable agency, and begins sending him letters, detailing his life as he sees it. It is more of a catharsis for Schmidt, rather than an attempt at real communication with a child. This contrivance also serves to tell the viewer just how Schmidt perceives his life. When he receives a letter with something the child has sent him, the idea that someone has actually thought of him opens the emotional floodgates for Schmidt and unleashes all those repressed feelings of anger, sadness, loss, pain, suffering, in one fell swoop.

Jack Nicholson gives an excellent performance as the repressed Midwesterner who only begins to get in touch with his feelings the end of his life spectrum. He gives a good account of a man who is making his way in, what is for him, uncharted territory. Funny, poignant and sad, it is a performance that is well nuanced. June Squibb is perfectly cast in the role of the Helen, Schmidt's wife. Her apple cheeked countenance and dumpy, matronly look exemplify the stereotypic senior citizen housewife. Helen's penchant for order and cleanliness is brought home by Ms. Squibb's performance, and Helen fittingly dies while vacuuming the laundry room.

Kathy Bates is wonderful as the somewhat bohemian, earth mother figure in the film. Her much talked about nude scene was natural and in keeping with her role. I applaud her courage in doing it, given the emphasis on thinness in Hollywood. While many reviled her for doing it, hers is a much more realistic reflection of what the body of a woman in her fifties or sixties actually looks like. Let me tell you, Jack Nicholson's body doesn't look much better either, but he was not reviled for it. There still continues to be a double standard for men and women, when it comes to excess avoirdupois.

Dermot Mulroney is terrific as the sensitive, easy going groom to be who seems to lack the full quid. Mulroney makes his character quite a likable one. Unfortunately, Hope Davis, as Jeannie Schmidt, serves to make her character a thoroughly unpleasant one. It is unclear, however, whether this was the intended effect. Howard Hesseman is wonderful as the groom's father, Larry Hertzel, and he gets a lot of mileage out of this bit part. Lou Cariou is excellent as Schmidt's erstwhile best friend, Ray.

All in all, this a film well worth watching. The baby boomers out there should take note. It is still not too late to avoid ending up like Schmidt.

"About Schmidt" is a wonderful movie starring the great Jack Nicholson, who plays the hapless retiree, Warren Schmidt. Warren lives in Omaha, Nebraska, and he is put out to pasture after a long career with an insurance company. Warren hates retirement, for which he is ill-prepared. In addition, Helen, Warren's wife of forty-two years, irritates him with her annoying habits and idiosyncrasies. Worst of all, Jeannie, Warren's beloved only child, is engaged to a man whom Warren cannot stand.

When Warren suddenly becomes a widower, he takes stock of his life, and he is appalled at how empty it is. In desperation, Warren starts to write rambling letters to his Tanzanian foster child, Ndugu. (Warren sends the child twenty-two dollars a month in response to a television appeal). Even though Ndugu is six years old and cannot read, Warren pours his heart into these letters as a means of venting his anger and frustration.

Alexander Payne, who directed "About Schmidt" and shares credit for writing the fine screenplay, has done a commendable job of eliciting strong performances from an excellent cast. Kathy Bates is a hoot as Jeannie's future mother-in-law, and both Len Cariou and Howard Hesseman shine in small roles. The film, however, belongs to Jack Nicholson, who appears in practically every frame.

Nicholson acts with his entire body. He does wonders with a raised eyebrow, a half-smile, a gesture or a glance. In one hilarious scene, Nicholson does battle with a waterbed and loses. Nicholson captures the very essence of Warren Schmidt, a man who will never be ready for the first day of the rest of his life. Don't miss "About Schmidt" if you want to see one of the best performances of this or any year.

Anyone who is a part of Corporate America can sympathize with Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson)- He's dedicated his life to his job, and mere days after retiring, he not only finds all of his files in the company's trash, but finds himself obsolete and unwanted by his former co-workers as well....His feelings of purposelessness and isolation are further compounded by the death of his Wife, and the discovery of her long-ago infidelity with his best friend.

Warren decides to hit the road in the mobile home his Wife loved, and head off to help his Daughter with her upcoming wedding. His future In-Laws, headed up by Kathy Bates, are a comedy gold-mine, and Bates provides one of the most jaw-dropping shocks/laughs in recent movie history. At it's heart, About Schmidt is a small film about the human condition, and Nicholson's wonderfully warm and restrained performance is perfect. The narrative device the film uses (Schmidt writing letters to his African Foster-child, Ndugu) allows Nicholson to show both the put-upon outer Schmidt, and the "Mad-as-hell-and-not-gonna-take-it-anymore" inner Warren. It's nice to see Jack in a more restrained role than what he's generally known for. It's a wonderful performance in a film full of wonderful performances.

Warren Schmidt could be described in these existential terms:

"[He is] afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia"
"[He] remains a cipher nearly to the story's end--dispassionate, clinical, disengaged from his own emotions."
"[He] exhibits an extreme of resignation; however, his confrontation with `the gentle indifference of the world' remains ... compelling."
[Quotes from the Amazon archives]

However, these descriptions are aimed at Monsieur Meursault, Camus' title character in The Stranger, not Warren Schmidt. Indeed, this connection between Schmidt and Meursault resonated with me throughout my viewing of About Schmidt. From the opening scene, where Schmidt sits in his antiseptic office waiting for 5:00pm (or is it Godot he waits for?), to the climatic speech given at his daughter's wedding, Jack Nicholson's character seems several steps removed from his own existence.

We come to find that Schmidt evolved into his current condition. Like an animal, trained and conditioned into submissiveness, Schmidt has learned to sit when he pees, listen rather than talk, and generally conform to the wishes of his wife. His feelings that early in life he held the potential to be something have been quashed and he now can only function in a robotic manner.

Through it all, however, the raw human emotions - the real Schmidt, bubble to the surface. We first see this in his initial letter to Ndugu, in which he slowly and then uncontrollable produces a litany of complaints against his wife Helen. Her death begins a journey of confused exploration for Schmidt. In a wonderfully comedic metaphor, the oversized RV, the Adventurer, becomes Schmidt's new home as he goes "On the Road." He reaches out to people in new ways, experiences things and see places he has been unfamiliar with, and he is seemingly primed for a rebirth.

In this light, how do we interpret the ending? Schmidt's speech at the wedding is not an honest exploration of his feelings. It seeks accommodation and includes small (perhaps damning) praise for his new in-laws. From the wedding, he travels straight home, making only one stop to visit an exhibit honoring past frontier explorers. By this point, Schmidt has sunk into despair, aware of the inconsequence of his life. Nicholson's look of horror is compelling and is perhaps a transcription of Munch's The Scream from one medium to another. Schmidt is a man who has reached the final stage of his life and has fully faced its meaninglessness.

However, in that moment of sad and painful revelation, Schmidt finds a letter written to him from the nun who helps raise his Tanzanian "foster son," Ndugu. It concludes by saying that Ndugu wishes him the best and, since Ndugu cannot read or write, he sends along a painting that he created just for Schmidt. Looking at that simple painting of two stick-people smiling and holding hands, Schmidt is overcome by emotion - honest emotion that we have not seen throughout the movie. Nicholson's face portrays a mixture of joy and pain that in itself should be qualification for an Oscar nomination.

Camus believed that men, thrust into a godless universe, must make individual moral decisions and thus create some small meaning. Perhaps this is what the tears at the end of About Schmidt are all about.

Director Alexander Payne can take a simple premise, a simple life, and make it so much more than simple by just letting characters be themselves in the real world (see "Sideways" for one of the best buddy movies ever made). Here an aging retiree, Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson), tries to rekindle his childhood memories after his wife dies and having bought a new RV. His future becomes more uncertain and he finds himself coming to terms with his daughter's marriage to a man he has no love for. Schmidt's estrangement takes him places in his RV and sees him doing things that his regular nine to five had hidden. The despair is neatly assorted with many comedy moments, mostly negligible instances that make for big scenes. Before we know it the audience finds themselves very much attached to a man who could be you!

This is also Nicholson as you have not seen him before (and for a guy who has been in 60 movies, that is no small feat). There is no Easy Rider, George Hanson, here. Instead we see what appears to be one of Hollywood's most loved actors wearing granddad's hide and looking as if he might keel over at the next bend. You will have a tendency to laugh in horror throughout most of it.

For this reason `About Schmidt' is mandatory viewing for all ages. For those looking forward to their long years, this is an example of what to expect and what you can do to make things a little easier for yourself and your family. For those getting on in years it can be something they can easily relate too. See it.

Warren Schmidt has been married to the same woman for 42 years, and has worked at Woodmen Insurance Company, in the Actuarial department, for nearly as long. The movie opens at the end of Schmidt's last day at work, before entering into the oblivion of retirement. We can tell by his body language and the look on his face that Warren is not a happy man. "About Schmidt" takes us on the quirky, sad, and funny journey of this man's new-found life, and manages to bring to the forefront a cast of unique, individual characters. The movie feels 'real', in a way that I haven't come across in cinema for a very long time.

Jack Nicholson stars as Warren Schmidt, a man who, now that he has retired, has nothing to do. He isn't a terribly deep individual, and so there isn't a lot for him to take an interest in. He appears to have no hobbies, no passions. But he is not an empty man. One day, Schmidt sees a commercial which beckons him to become a sponsor for a poor, mal-nourished African child. He answers the commercial's call, and soon starts sending monthly checks to his sponsor child, Ndugu. We get to see a picture of sweet, little Ndugu, and Schmidt decides to start sending the youth regular letters, discussing the events currently going on in his life. This allows for a nice, connective narration for the film, and it is used to good effect.

Schmidt's wife had bought an Adventurer for the two of them to travel the country in during their retiring years. Unfortunately, Mrs. Schmidt passes away, and Warren is left to his own devices. We see the stages of grief pass through the widower, and Nicholson excels with his portrayal of the troubled, lonely man. Eventually, Schmidt decides to take the Adventurer out by himself, and then the film becomes somewhat of a road movie. He meets some very interesting people along his journey, and visits some very real locales across the American midwest. The big event looming in Schmidt's life is the wedding of his daughter to a man that he can't stand, but seems unable to convince his daughter not to marry. The groom's family is a hoot. You'll have to see them to believe them.

Everything comes together in this movie. Nicholson implodes exquisitely as Schmidt, and is both humorous and sympathetic to watch. June Squibb, as Schmidt's wife, is so very sweet. Though she isn't in the film much, her character leaves a lasting memory. I loved Dermut Mulroney as Schmidt's future son-in-law, Randall . He made that character his own. Randall's a sweet guy, but would be terrifying to any woman's father that he met. And we can't forget Kathy Bates. She is not in the movie much, either, but also leaves a marked imprint upon the film. Be prepared to see her dis-robed, however. It is quite... memorable.

"About Schmidt" is a near-perfect film. Understand that it is drama *and* a comedy. There are very rarely guffaw-inducing moments, but there are quite a few instances that will keep you chuckling to no end. This is one of the hardest kind of movies to do. To balance humor and solemnity is not an easy task, and all involved pull it off wonderfully. Alexander Payne deserves recognition for his screenplay, and also for his direction of the film. All of the actors make their characters seem quite real. We feel for them, and laugh along with them.

And don't forget little Ndugu. We know that he, just like us, will always care about Schmidt.

About Schmidt, although somewhat plodding, provides the perfect vehicle to demostrate that there is no finer and more talented actor on the screen today than Jack Nicholson.

Nicholson plays Warren Schmidt, a Nebraskan actuary who works for a large insurance firm. His regimented life, shaped by his henpecking wife is inexorably altered by his retirement. He gets thrown into further turmoil when returning home from running some errands he discovers that his wife has dropped dead. Nicholson's only daughter played by Hope Davis arrives from out of town for the funeral with her morally bereft loser of a fiance played nicely by Dermot Mulroney. Her upcoming betrothal is one strongly disapproved by Nicholson and a cause of friction between them. They soon leave and Nicholson is left to fend for himself.

Nicholson commences passing his time aimlessly. While cleaning out his wife's possessions, he discovers love letters documenting an adulterous affair with his best friend. He is crushed and sees his very existence as an abject failure. He has in his loneliness adopted an underprivileged foster child in a third world country through a televison ad. He writes to the 6 year old child using a diary format sprinkled with some highly inappropriate verbiage.

He decides to take a road trip in a large camper on his way to his daughter's wedding. Upon his arrival in Colorado, he meets and stays with his future son in law's dysfunctional family headed by the terrific Kathy Bates. Despite his objections, the wedding goes on without a hitch, highlighted by Nicholson's toast. By this time, Nicholson is totlly crestfallen, convinced that his life has no meaning.

His return home is met by the arrival of a letter from his foster child that reveals to him the true meaning of life, an absolutely wonderful ending to the movie.

Nicholson richly deserves an Oscar for his performance but might get snubbed because his collection of statues is vast already. Kathy Bates deserves consideration for best supporting actress.

Jack Nicholson started his career as a hipster, went on to cool middle-aged characters, and now has metamorphosed into an old fart. I think the Director of Sideways, Alexander Payne has helped the transition to more soulful, human characterizations. Warren Schmidt is an insurance actuary crunching death statistics all day for a Nebraska insurance company. The building is the tallest and only skyscraper in Omaha. He goes to work. He goes home. He has a frumpy, frau-of-a-wife that waits on his every domestic whim and a grown daughter that lives in another city. Hope Davis is always terrific and as a 30-something career gal that finally lands a man, a whacked-out waterbed salesman with a bizarre Denver family, she stoically handles her out of control retiree and widower dad.

Yes, Schmidt is put-out-to-pasture. He still wears a suit around the house, twiddles his thumbs, and buys a Winnebago for those retirement trips with the wife. The wife has a heart attack just before the daughter's wedding. Schmidt hits the road visiting some of those totems of remembrance like his childhood home that is now a tire store. He has encounters or misadventures with Mid-Western glad-handers, moments of sexual desperation and loneliness with the likes of Kathy Bates and Cheryl Hamada. The hot tub scene and the husbands away from the mobile home caper is a laugh.

But I would be derelict of duty if I didn't mention the poignancy of Schmidt's predicament. His only connection to reality is the twenty-two dollars he sends monthly to a little boy in an orphanage in Sumatra. He writes long letters to the orphan five-year-old that reveals his concerns for his daughter's ill-suited boyfriend and recounts his lifetime of disappointments. These letters are Schmidt's hopes and dreams turned upside down. They indicate wistfulness, but not realities.

Schmidt learns a life lesson by the end of the film. A good script will do that. The pilgrim must suffer till he comes to revelation. You won't be disappointed either.

"About Schmidt" is a difficult film to watch. The main character, played by Nicholson, is not easy to like: he's hopelessly self-absorbed, cowardly, and basically pathetic. During the course of the film he does manage to gain a fair bit of enlightenment and personal growth, but it's all too little too late: there are no magical, uplifting, tear-jerking transformations and irreconcilable differences reconciled, no unsurmountable problems surmounted, no crowd-pleasing Big Happy Ending to wrap it all up in a nice little bow. Schmidt is an amusing and interesting character, yet so unvarnished that you really DON'T want to identify with him.

Yet it's equally hard to DISLIKE this film, because it rings so true on so many different levels: plodding through our cutthroat corporate/work culture, the impenetrable sterility of life in the suburbs, selling out the best years of one's life and then being left with the sorry leftovers for a few years before kicking the bucket, an empty gray marriage chosen out of sheer laziness and fear...who isn't guilty of at least several of the preceding? Bleak it is, but also brutally honest, uncompromisingly authentic.

Without any flights of sentimentality or saccharine or wishful thinking, "About Schmidt" hits us with the end result of precisely such a wasted life: the enveloping grayness, emptiness, isolation and desolation of it all when two of our most powerful diversions are finally stripped away---the job and the spouse---and we can no longer run away from the lie and the farce that we've made our life into.

Think of it as a wake-up call, a "Carpe Diem" movie in reverse: this film shows you precisely what happens when you DON'T seize the day but instead choose to waste your life away.