About Schmidt
Matinee
Jack Nicholson's performance in About Schmidt is all the more subtle and impressive when one considers the Hollywood Jack the icon of cool, wickedness, and devil-may-care esprit de corps. Not that an actor can't be different than his Hollywood persona, but the contrast in this case makes his performance shine for its low key brilliance.
About Schmidt itself is of the newish vanguard of "slice of life" movies (for lack of a better term) such as Personal Velocity and Lovely & Amazing. In these, the main character or characters have an emotional journey that the filmmaker presents, rather than one of action and occurrences. Sure, huge, life-changing events happen in Warren Schmidt's late life, just as we are meeting him - but what we are glued to us watching Schmidt navigate through his own reactions to these events. On paper, it doesn't sound very compelling. That's where Nicholson's job begins. Shuffling off his charismatic, high energy coil reveals an old, tired, man, who doesn't even know how much rage and terror he walks around with. He's fantastic.
On one level, we can almost predict what will happen next in Warren's life - he almost seems to jinx himself into corners on purpose, baiting himself to finally come out of that high-cholesterol shell and really feel something genuinely, come alive. Hapless Warren does not seem to sense the inevitable looming, and we are so engaged in his reactions that we feel the events fresh even after predicting them. It's not predictable - this is difficult to explain.
Cowritten and directed by Alexander Payne (Election, Citizen Ruth), About Schmidt can take a normal person's life, with normal, big, personal tragedies or stressors, and make them feel as huge and unmanageable in the person's life as they really are. Election focused on a high school class president election that managed to ruin many lives due to the main character's stubborn insistence that they were on the high road - and it's a fantastically subtle film that has to be seen to be appreciated. About Schmidt is the same way, in that it is the character driven reactions that really twist the knife in some of the problems he experiences.
Rage and terror crouch on Schmidt's shoulder as he stubbornly navigates his 35 foot RV across the Midwest, inviting disaster with every turn. He is chasing a solution for his loss and confusion that can only come from within. Schmidt only finds his true mind, his real thoughts, when writing letters overseas to his sponsored child in Africa. The audience in my showing laughed in welcoming relief with every voice over of "Dear Ndugu," for his was Jack at his most wry and open and honest. We feel the relief of the expression almost as much as he does. The best moments happen here, in these letters.
Nicholson abandons any overly decorous sense of cool or vanity to be shlubby, persnickety, and just plain ol' old. Lara Flynn Boyle, forget about it. The main reason to see this film is Nicholson, and you won't be disappointed in that.
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These reviews (c) 2002 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but just credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. reviews@cinerina.com Check out previous reviews at: http://www.cinerina.com http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource http://www.mediamotions.com for 1999 releases
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