Title: About Schmidt |
Release Date: 2002 |
Nationality and Language: |
Running time: 120 min |
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Distributor and Production Company: New Line Cinema |
Director; Writer: Alexander Payne; screenplay by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor; based on novel by Louis Begley |
Producer: Harry Gittes and Michael Besman |
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney |
Technical: |
Relevance to DOASKDOTELL site: |
Review: Okay, “About Schmidt” sounds like an about box on a
website. Somebody even posted an “about Which is to say, this movie again is more exposition, a slow discovery and recollection of an aging man’s sense of self. Jack Nicholson carries this off, with a character whom one might otherwise pity rather than engage and respect. Nicholson can draw the viewer in like few actors. Schmidt has retired from his position as a vice president
of actuarial services at a life insurance company in In the meantime, he has decided to contribute to an
international children’s charity, which has named him a “foster parent” to a
boy in His daughter seems self-actualized enough, though. She
chastises him for choosing the cheapest coffin (except a “sandbox”); “You
could have splurged on Mom once.” She is planning to marry a slightly thawing
waterbed salesman (Dermot Mulroney) who comes across as a typical redneck
with few real skills beyond procreation, so he is making up pyramid schemes,
like a typical parasite. Oh well, he can act like a real “go getter.” Schmidt decides to drive the camper to Along the way he has more misadventures. He meets a
friendly couple from When he arrives in At this point, I remembered My Big Fat Greek Wedding from the summer, and this new movie seemed much more real to me than the ethnic comedy, which to me had seemed trite and patronizing to old-fashioned values even though that movie did very well at the box office and was popular with the public. Here, an aging man is questioning whether his life means anything at all. It must have, if he raised a family successfully, but it seems that after retiring and becoming a widower he was unable to define any purposes for himself on his own; he needed to have these goals dictated to him by others. Indeed, without family and structured job to give him purpose, he seems to have disintegrated into a kind of inertness, almost like a chemical loss of valence. He does find final redemption in a letter and drawing from Ngudu. Now, I have supported Save The Children (as I mention in my Do Ask, Do Tell book) since 1977, but I have never regarded myself as a “foster parent” and have never written the children assigned to me (they are changed about every three years). It had never even occurred to me to do that. So if I ask the same Reviewing Your Life question about myself, I do feel that my writings have made a difference, but I authenticated myself by providing for a family first. So I wind up feeling some of the same vulnerabilities as Schmidt. The screenwriting is masterful, with almost every line of the script saying something provocative, yet always perfectly natural, colloquial, and character-driven.
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Related reviews: Sideways; Garden State (“Sideways” is also directed by Payne) |
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