| ABOUT SCHMIDT Rating:   Director: Alexander Payne Producers: Michael Besman & Harry Gittes Writer: Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor Director of Photography: James Glennon Cast: Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew |
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Review by: Curtis
Raines
12/16/02
With a flurry of movies hitting the big screen just in time for the holiday push, Alexander Payne's About Schmidt sets the bar at perhaps an unreachable level for the competition. Now I must admit, The Oscars, is probably the worst abomination ever put on television next to The Chevy Chase Show and The Magic Hour. A four-hour travesty to announce a few awards filled with cutaway shots of Michael Douglas fake laughing at Whoopi Goldberg's atrocious jokes is not my idea of something significant. But the Oscars are the Oscars, the best promotional tool for a movie there is. So with that in mind, I would like nothing more than for About Schmidt to steal the show, because it and everyone involved definitely deserves it.
Alexander Payne's third and best movie once again takes place in the fly-over state of Nebraska (A great metaphor for Schmidt's life). Warren Schmidt is a sixty-six year old man being pushed into retirement from an insurance company to which he has pledged forty years of his life. A life-changing event causes Schmidt to evaluate his life from an existential point of view. From there we follow Schmidt on a journey to connect with a society and a daughter that he has been aloof to for so many years. With a great use of narrative through the letters written to Schmidt's African foster child, we explore his thoughts and fears as a lonely aging man.
On a quest to stop the marriage of his daughter to a waterbed salesman with a mullet (Dermot Mulroney), Schmidt takes his Winnebago on the road to Denver (home of his daughter). Scene after scene is an exploration of foreign territory to Schmidt. He even attempts to visit the house in which he grew up in, now the site of a tire store. This scene is a powerful illustration of a past that is now so far gone -- and a present that is passing him by.
Like Payne's two previous movies (Citizen Ruth & Election), About Schmidt examines the bleak life of the protagonist with a darkly comedic approach. Payne is becoming a master at combining drama and comedy. Perhaps the best example of this involves a powerful moment in a trailer park in which we witness a pathetic attempt from Schmidt to relate to a woman to whom he feels close. His social skills are so far buried that his only reaction to the bizarre connection he feels with her is to grab and kiss her, making a complete fool of himself in the process. It is literally painful to watch this man so disconnected and distant from reality. A very sad yet truthful commentary on a life that we all fear to live.
I can't remember the last film in which I was emotionally invested from the first second to the final. Everyone involved (especially Mulroney & Nicholson) put on the best performances of their careers. And considering the career Nicholson has had, that is saying a lot. Payne may have gone to the "Nicholson funny expression reaction shot" one too many times, but other than that, I had no problems with the film.
So when I painfully watch Steve Martin host the Oscars this March, let's just hope that sitting through four hours of God awful jokes culminates in hearing "About Schmidt" announced five or six times. Somehow I've got a feeling that's asking way too much of the brain dead people that are the Academy voters.
(A New Line Cinema release. Opened
in New York and Los Angeles on December 13. Expands to more cities
on December 20.)
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