Rating: 
Summary: A Feel-Bad-About-The-Other-Guy Movie
Review: Different people have seen different things in About Schmidt, which is a backhand recommendation in itself. This is what I saw.About Schmidt is perfect for DVD or VHS. Images are totally clear, on-center, carrying little extraneous detail. Structure is likewise linear, one-thing-at-a-time-only, with each scene just a second too long, as if to give you time to eat TV Dinner while watching. Nicholson, at the center of every scene, carries the movie on his capable shoulders. The faults aren't his. Your typical Hollywood movie tries to go two ways on its themes. In a sense, this is true of About Schmidt. The basic plot is a thorough tragedy, but most scenes can be watched for laughs. In another sense, it's not. The tragedy is played out completely, with no happy end at all. The tragedy is that of a successful Man in The Gray Flannel Suit reaching retirement, and widowhood a bit later, and finding that neither in business nor in family has anyone any need at all for him, nor interest, except for his checks. Schmidt adapts to this by slowly but sincerely adopting the roles still allowed him, consumer and tourist. The view of American life behind this is that people meet and separate as if on a highway, with quick but superficial and exchangeable intimacies, leaving individuals with no roots and only three stable roles - hail-fellow-well-met, consumer and tourist. The problem with the view is that it's a nice High Concept but it's simply generally untrue outside Hollywood itself. About Schmidt is movie number 5432 about the Schtumps Out There, from the Glitter Factory People. To achieve its starkness, it needs a central character who never learned to listen to anyone, who is an habitual liar, and who has made an internal hobby of despising his wife, the only person on earth with a true, personal and loving interest in him. Schmidt reminded me of Dilbert's Pointy-Haired Boss. What the movie says about American life is not untrue but it's extremely partial, and Warren Schmidt fails as Everyman, where Willie Lomax succeeded in Miller's Death of a Salesman. There are other flaws. Schmidt's single child, a daughter, is getting married in her late thirties, and her in-laws are made completely over-the-top, for laughs at the level of America's Funniest Home Videos. From the first second, you can't understand why this woman of above-average intelligence would want to share her life with a waterbed salesman straight out of the Reagan era, whose dream of self-improvement is to succeed as an Amway distributor (Amway is not named). About Schmidt was launched in the Christmas season. It's a Christmas movie because of its obvious laughs and because at least in this season people have enough roots in their lives that the contrast with Schmidt will help them count their blessings. It's a Christmas movie because of its faults.
Rating: 
Summary: A movie for grown ups that packs an emotional wallop
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Facing the "golden" years with sorrow.
Review: "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.
Rating:
Summary: Both sides now...
Review: "About Schmidt" is a good movie but not a great one, with a message that will be obvious to some, a revelation to others. It purports to be about one character, but it is really about two, a lifeless retiree played by Jack Nicholson and a zestful artist played by Kathy Bates. These two characters -- whose children's wedding takes place at the climax of the movie -- know the same things about life but approach them in totally different ways. Schmidt is a recent retiree and widower who has nothing but time on his hands; Kathy Bates is a character so caught up in herself that she is clueless to the fact that most people are utterly indifferent to her. Although Bates's character is a supporting one, it is the difference between her and Schmidt's outlook that defines the movie's message. Life may well be meaningless, the movie seems to be saying, but blessed are those who embrace it anyway. For most of the movie, Schmidt is not one of those characters. He was married to a woman for 42 years who was less than his soul mate; in one scene Schmidt confesses to a woman he just met that she knows him better than his wife ever did. He adores his daughter, who seems to see his main function in her life as a bottomless ATM machine. He has no friends to speak of, save a man who turns out to have betrayed him. He has no hobbies, and nothing to look forward to. The movie paints the same mood as Payne's other movies "Citizen Ruth" and "Election." There is humor in these movies' characters, but mostly they are very sad. At times the director seems to be condesending to midwestern life. Unlike the Coen brothers, who clearly feel nostalgic affection for the Minnesota they grew up with, I'm not so sure that Payne isn't smirking at his good luck for getting away from lifestyles that revolve around "cheap" steak dinners. But, overall the movie is a good one.
Rating:
Summary: An instant classic!
Review: This is Mr. Payne's third attempt to make a watchable film. In "About Shmidt," he cobbles together a series of unused vignettes from "Election" and "Citizen Ruth" that were best left on the cutting room floor. The multi-talented although aging star of the film is clearly exasperated with the take-no-prisoners, bad-boy attitude of his baby-faced wunderkind director. When Payne wants to distract your attention from the painful truth on the actors' faces, which is often, he irritates you with a blaring soundtrack. When he wants you to see the eye-twinkling, unpretentious, home-cooked honesty of his Oklahoman kinfolk, trapped-in-their-ring-around-the-collar, middle american, ways, he cuts to parades, clowns, and orderly town meetings, not unlike those you might see on public access at 2:00 a.m. Contrasted with those not-so-subtle filmmaking techniques is Payne's judicious and plentiful use of in-your-face, shameless nudity. That alone almost made my experience worth the price of admission. Thank you for this film!
Rating:
Summary: All joking aside
Review: Jack Nicholson is Warren R. Schmidt, an Omaha insurance executive being forcibly retired at the too-early age of 66. He has lived to see his work literally binned by his firm. His daughter Jeannie rarely visits. His wife has become an unpleasant stranger. He has some twenty years, give or take, left to live. (Social commentary everywhere. Sixty-six is not what it used to be: Schmidt is entirely too lively and rugged to be permanently benched.) The formulae of literature classes suddenly spring to mind. Schmidt is an honest-to-god Everyman: an Everyman who missed every flight to Hollywood. He presents as if bleached, as if a personification of a second-greatest generation, a sum of values, not features. He is The Minimalist Midwesterner: thrift, privacy, and industry incarnate. His plight is memorable; critically, he is not. Schmidt is such an intensely private character that not even the audience will know him entirely. The film begins as a subtle, well-executed comedy of insulted dignity, as Schmidt tries to find a way to occupy his hours. He tries and fails to slip back to the office. His wife has splurged on a luxury Winnebago and threatens "lots of good times ahead". Schmidt retreats to the television, clicks through channels, and sees a beseeching ad for "Childreach", a charity devoted to children in the Third World. An announcer warns that, "no, pity and guilt won't help", and Schmidt calls in his pledge. A form letter arrives with a boldface name, and Schmidt, eyebrows raised, is delivered of a son, six-year old Ndugu of Tanzania. Some $22 is expected of him per month, and the charity suggests a task: Schmidt should write the boy a letter of introduction with a few particulars about his own life in America. Schmidt pulls out a legal pad and begins to compose the majority of the film's script, an epistolary narrative of one-sidedness. Schmidt takes to self-absorption with seriousness and therapeutic result. It is through the letters that the film shifts gears, with comedy gradually decelerating into genuine pathos. His first letter to Ndugu complains about his wife, a banal asterisk of a woman, as matronly as Schmidt is stoically handsome. Before they can take a single "adventure" trip, she fatally strokes out while a passive-aggressive Schmidt "dillydallies" over errands. He finds her pitched forward on the carpet, as her vacuum-cleaner weeps gently on. Ever the actuary, Schmidt recalculates his life expectancy in light of his solitude. The future looks bleaker and shorter. He buries his wife, as his daughter will later discover, in the second-cheapest coffin available: thrift. The orphaned Schmidt clings tighter to his imaginary companion Ndugu, and he sets out in his Ark-sized trailer to rescue his daughter for the foolishness of her impending marriage, only weeks away. Her fiancé sports a mullet. His opening salvo to Schmidt involved a transparent sales pitch with the reassuring tag, "this isn't a pyramid scheme." The fiancé truly isn't good enough. Schmidt's first sign of life comes when he winningly decides to accept "you sad, sad man" as a sexual overture from a married woman he meets on his journey. Her screams of rejection prompt a dark night of the soul. When Schmidt finally reaches Denver for the wedding, he joins his future in-laws, including the mother of Jeannie's fiancé (Kathy Bates). Cultures collide. Schmidt recoils from a ghastly brush with incest inflicted by Bates through her detailed revelations of Jeannie's sex life. Apparently, "the kids" will hold their marriage together with their "what goes on under the sheets." Kathy Bates bursts out of her role as a clapped-out old hippie, weirdly blowing her timing in a number of lines. It becomes abruptly clear that she is a great dramatist, not a comedian, and that she cannot be shoe-horned into someone else's film: her presence and talent register too profoundly. Her infamous nude scene, as she joins Schmidt in a creepily snug hot-tub, is more unkind than clever, and is directed more like a stunt (Extreme Nudity) than a dramatic scene. She thrills momentarily as she flings down a chicken bone in disgust when her ex-husband, a pompous Toastmaster type, delivers a welcoming oration to Schmidt. At last, Schmidt receives a response from Tanzania, and its lessons come with the force of a body blow. A Belgian nun has finally, kindly replied, explaining in a short note penned in creaky English that Ndugu is yet too young to read or write, but that she has shared the letters' contents. Schmidt's money has provided medication to save Ndugu's eyesight. Her gentleness, foreign to the rest of the film, has the same effect as violence, exploding like a bomb against Schmidt's identity, his delusions and pride. In exchange for Ndugu's vision, Schmidt finally experiences insight. No more letters to be written with the demented obliviousness of a senile grandfather: "I bet you're eager to cash this cheque and get yourself something to eat." Schmidt, citizen of the First-World, needs tiny Ndugu more than he is needed. The tactful Sister is somewhat puzzled by Schmidt's avalanche of confessional correspondence. At best, Ndugu has been given a précis of the contents. Now Schmidt is more alone than ever. But wait: the boy has enclosed a drawing of two stick figures, one small, one large, holding hands, conjoined against a rainbow. Ndugu, the Earth's true future, will see, and Schmidt has found ties that bind.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies of all time
Review: "About Schmidt" is, simply put, a milestone in American cinema. Coming off "Election," which was quite possibly the funniest movie of all time, director Alexander Payne delivered another classic here, but one of a different stripe. With Jack Nicholson delivering a performance that's somehow both low-key and passionate, this character study relentlessly examines the darker side of human existence, plumbing the depths of despair and hopelessness. However, the central character isn't a serial killer, a sex offender, or some similar paragon of depravity. Instead, he's a quiet, 66-year-old newly retired actuary from Nebraska named Warren Schmidt. That's what really makes this movie so depressing: someday, maybe not too far off, any of us could wind up like this movie's antihero, retired, widowed, and feeling useless. Alexander Payne's portrait of Midwestern suburban life is almost unrelentingly bleak, following its main character around and focusing on all the tiny indignities that steadily pile up on him. The relentlessly self-analytical Warren has examined his life in search of some higher purpose, and he's come up lacking. Looking back he can see only missed opportunities and pointless toil, and looking ahead he only glimpses loneliness and impending death. He has only two things left that give his life any semblance of meaning: his attempts to prevent his beloved daughter from marrying a mulleted, fu-manchued waterbed salesman named Randall; and Ndugu, the Tanzanian orphan whom he starts supporting financially early in the movie. Warren's letters to Ndugu serve as a perfect framing device, providing a window to the internal conflicts that roil beneath his quiet exterior. Since the monstrous shadow of "Election" looms over this movie for its entire two hours, comparisons are all but inevitable, and I might as well make mine now. Both movies are allegorical tales set in white-bread Nebraska locales, but "Election" is a screwball comedy anchored by a serious plot, while "About Schmidt" is a dark tale of quiet desparation and self-reflection with some offbeat humor mixed in. It's a good thing there are some laughs here too, or I might have wound up trying to hang myself with my belt after I first saw the movie. Most of the humor to be found come from Dermot Mulroney's clueless Randall and, of course, Kathy Bates as Randall's mildly deranged motormouth of a mother. Bates practically steals the show during her limited screen time, as her character's sincerity, her brutal honesty, and above all her tendency to reveal excessive details provides a much-needed counterpoint to Nicholson's reserve and bitterness. While I'll be the first to admit that "About Schmidt" isn't an easy movie to watch, it's not supposed to be. What makes this such a rewarding movie is the challenge of watching such a thoroughly unremarkable man for two hours, following along with his path through despair, self-discovery, and ultimately a measure of redemption. Sure, Warren Schmidt's just a retired geezer from Nebraska, but his sufferings are more universal than they may appear at first. Warren's experiences make for such fascinating viewing precisely because there are so many people like him out there.
Rating:
Summary: Devastatingly Sad and Darkly Humorous
Review: Many critics unfairly compare "About Schmidt" to Alexander Payne's previous film "Election." Both movies are completely different and appeal to different people and tastes. "Schmidt" is more grown-up, more human, and less accessible and commercial. It is Payne's masterpiece. Jack Nicholson, in one of his all-time best performances, plays a recent retiree who goes through an end-of-life crisis. His wife dies and his daughter is marrying an idiot, played with comedic brilliance by Dermot Mulroney. He hops in his Winnebago and drives across the United States to have his say. Nicholson is a tired old man who doesn't want to give up on life quite yet, and in a last show of defiance and nonconformity, he tries to stop the wedding. "Schmidt," to some, is an unrelenting Prozac festival. But if you have a taste for black comedy, and enjoy watching ordinary people fail miserably and make jackasses out of themselves, as well as appreciate good drama, "Schmidt" is your type of movie. It's true, most of the film is sad. But there are moments -- especially when Nicholson shows up at Kathy Bates's house and has to endure her completely dysfunctional brood -- of comedic genius. If that's not enough to convince you, watch it for Nicholson's performance alone. Oftentimes in his long spanning career, Nicholson has resorted to playing mockeries of his public persona -- flashing those eyebrows and exploding that smile of his. But in "Schmidt" he appropriately plays the role of an old defeated man. You won't even know it's him. He seems to have aged an additional 67 years just to play this role, and it's inspiring. It's also a lesson that, no matter how old you are, there's no reason to give up on your hopes and dreams -- just make sure you're not trying to topple the Berlin Wall alone. Sad and funny. Bitter and cynical. "About Schmidt" has it all, including some of the most unforgettable elderly characters ever portrayed on screen.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This movie is about a poor old guy. It is a simple, but good movie. In the final scene, I started to cry. I have not cried for over ten years.
Rating: 
Summary: The Winter of His Discontent
Review: When an acting icon plays against type, the results are usually either transcendent or disastrous. In About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson turns away from his usual swaggering, in-your-face characterizations - and fortunately achieves transcendence.
Warren Schmidt is a new retiree, a 66-year-old former vice president and actuary of the Woodmen of the World life insurance organization. It's an apt career choice for Warren, who is himself a "wood man" - a stick, a laconic fellow who participates little in the lives of his family and associates. Instead, he watches. As the movie starts, we see Warren sitting at the desk of his boxed-up office, staring at the wall clock as the second hand sweeps toward 5 p.m. when he will officially retire. Later that evening, at his retirement party, he smiles politely and says nothing as he is toasted by his colleagues. Throughout the movie, nearly the only glimpses of his true feelings that we are afforded come through voiceover narrations of the letters he writes to Ndugu, a Tanzanian child Warren impulsively decides to sponsor through Childreach.
Warren's immediate plan after retirement is to travel with his wife Helen in their cavernous Winnebago Adventurer, and attend the wedding of his daughter Jeannie (Hope Davis). Jeannie is engaged to Randall Hertzel (Dermot Mulroney), a sweet but dimwitted waterbed salesman whom Warren despises. Warren's world is thrown out of kilter when Helen dies suddenly, he discovers that she has been unfaithful to him with his best friend (Len Cariou), and he becomes estranged from Jeannie over her impending nuptials. Determined to mend matters with his daughter and talk her out of marrying Randall, Warren provisions the motorhome and sets out for Denver to visit Jeannie. When he telephones her to let her know he's on the way, she insists that he stay away until a day or two before the wedding. So, with time on his hands and no one at home, he charts a meandering course with the motorhome to various places from his youth - all the while accompanied by voiceovers of his letters to Ndugu. (Interestingly, Ndugu is a real Childreach child, though his name is actually Abdalla. He is supported by the About Schmidt production crew, who created a lifetime Endowed Sponsorship for him.)
Warren undertakes his trip down memory lane to find a bit of meaning in a life gone unexpectedly amiss. Predictably, it's a disaster. Much of it - indeed, much of About Schmidt - is cliched material familiar from a host of other movies. The material is handled, though, in a fresh manner that elevates the movie above others of its genre. When he finds that the home of his birth has been torn down and replaced by a tire store, for instance, Warren doesn't fly into a rage or stoop to bitter sarcasm. Instead, he distills whatever pleasant reminiscence he can from the visit, even remarking with winsome irony on the tire swing that once hung in the yard.
Portrayals that would fall into caricature in other movies are handled in About Schmidt with restraint and dead-on observation. A middle-aged couple Warren encounters in a campground might have stepped out of a Good Sam brochure. Randall Hertzel's extended family, while entertainingly eccentric, always stop short of buffoonery; and Kathy Bates as Randall's mother paints such a definitive portrait with a few deft strokes that you could swear you've known her all your life. The movie itself walks a fine line between cynicism and sentimentality, on the strength of Nicholson's perfectly balanced performance. At Jeannie's wedding reception, after trying so hard to convince her to give up Randall, Warren offers a conciliatory toast that reads like something from the end of a Shakespeare comedy; and you think, At last the movie has settled into its conventional happy ending. But then, as he pilots the motorhome back to Omaha, Warren narrates his bitterness to Ndugu over his failure to save Jeannie from her nitwit groom. Cynicism reigns. It is only at the true end of the movie - back in Omaha, when he reads his first return letter from his foster child - that Schmidt finds his desperately-sought shred of redemption. It is nothing more than a moment of recognition before the credits roll; but at last Warren grasps a rag of hope to banish the chill of wintry age.
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