Rating- * * * * * (5/5)
I never planned on bringing a lot of friends to this movie because, knowing my friends, I expected it would not be the kind of movie they typically enjoyed. They expressed regrets about going and frankly I didn’t try very hard to convince them that they would like it, other than telling them about all the great reviews it was getting. On the surface, About Schmidt isn’t really a very enjoyable story, but the extra comic touches that veteran actors Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates bring to this film, along with some very subtle story details make this very dark subject matter seem very light-hearted at times. The story follows Warren R. Schmidt (Nicholson), a husband, father and vice-president at a successful insurance company. In the opening scenes, we witness a dinner being held in honor of Schmidt’s retirement and we sense that he is a well-respected member of his community who seems to have a pretty good life. But as Schmidt enters into the routine of his retired life, he begins to realize that his life may not be quite as great as he thought. His wife’s little idiosyncrasies begin to drive him mad, he can’t find anything to do with his time, and when he goes to talk to his successor at work, he finds that his job really wasn’t ever very difficult or important. As he’s watching TV one day, Schmidt sees an ad for a world children’s fund and decides to sponsor a child. When he receives his sponsorship package in the mail, a brochure suggests that he write letters to his child, a 4-year-old African boy named Ndugu. Feeling bored and isolated, Schmidt decides to use the letter as a chance to pour his heart out to someone. Schmidt tells the boy all his problems and gripes, even though the boy probably won’t understand a bit of it, and the letters work as a kind of whimsical narration to the story. If you don’t want to know anything about the plot at all you might want to skip ahead a little, but if you’d like the general gist of it here it is: Schmidt comes home one day to find his wife dead from a sudden blood clot in the brain. He feels bad for having complained so much about his wife and suddenly realizes how much he is going to miss her. This sudden turn of events brings his beloved daughter in town from the big city, which of course makes Schmidt very happy since he loves his daughter more than anything in the world. To his surprise, his daughter becomes very angry with him because she feels that her father never spoiled his wife enough, even buying her a cheap casket. The problems between the two deepen when Schmidt tells his daughter that he does not approve of her fiancé, a waterbed salesman who is one of the funniest characters I’ve seen in a while. He is a pretty nice guy but a complete loser with an absolutely trashy family. All in all, he’s not exactly the guy every father wants to give their daughter away to. To try and figure out where his life is going, Schmidt decides to take a road trip in his new RV. The various occurrences and characters he encounters upon this road trip account for most of the rest of the film and range from very entertaining to very touching. Although we encounter many funny moments in this film, it is at heart about a man who, at the end of his life, realizes that he hasn’t done anything worth remembering in his entire life. He is terrified by this fact and puts all his energy into trying to stop his daughter from marrying an idiot in hopes that it will give some sort of cosmic value to his life. About Schmidt is a portrait of a very desperate man who finds himself unable to make a dent in the world he has lived in for so long. It is a very poignant and personal film that some may find depressing because of its underlying themes, despite the somewhat hopeful ending. To this opinion I say that great film, like life, is not always happy and appreciating this film requires the viewer to realize this basic fact. This is an incredibly well-written film with a brilliant cast and a message that would everyone some good to hear. This film definitely deserves some attention from the Academy and I obviously recommend it for viewing by anyone who considers them self a human being.