About Schmidt: Movie & DVD Review

(Originally published Dec. 20, 2002)

The new Alexander Payne movie, "About Schmidt," is about a man forced to face himself in retirement, figure out who he is in the process and get on with his life in spite of sensing that the world could care less if it went on without him.

The man in question is 66-year-old Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) and the first time we see him, he's staring at the clock in his empty office, waiting for the day to end so he can begin his new life as a retired actuary from Omaha's Woodmen of the World Insurance Co.

In spite of what you might expect, the prospect of retiring from a place called Woodmen of the World is hardly something that delights Warren. Indeed, if anything, it means he'll soon be touring the country with someone he fears he doesn't know and never really has known--his wife of 42 years, Helen (stage actress June Squibb).

More troubling to Warren is the idea that he and Helen will be traveling within arm's reach of each other in their new Adventurer, the enormous Winnebago that somehow stretches longer than the silences that stretch between them.

But when a sudden, life-altering event occurs and Warren is cast into unchartered territory, an inward journey of self-discovery erupts, one that finds him trying to prevent his only child, Jeannie (Hope Davis), from throwing away her life by marrying a mullet-haired loser named Randall (Dermot Mulroney), while also pouring out all of his sadness and rage in countless letters to Ndugu, the 6-year-old Tanzanian boy Warren adopted through a children's aid agency for $22 a month.

How does all of this play out on screen? Beautifully. As directed by Payne ("Election," "Citizen Ruth") from a script Jim Taylor based on Louis Begley's novel, "About Schmidt" is funny and poignant, a smart, quietly observed film that finds Nicholson at the top of his game, cooling the manic outbursts audiences expect from him to deservedly score his 12th Academy Award nomination, one he very well might win come March.

The film’s other Academy Award nominee is Kathy Bates. As Randall’s mother, Roberta, a multiorgasmic, twice-divorced hippie whose passion for “white-hot sex” hasn’t diminished over the years, Bates doesn’t show up until 75 minutes into the film, but when she does, she nails the role, disrobing in front of Warren in a scene that’s received a lot of attention, but which is never as sensational as we’ve been led to expect. Instead, it feels natural and unforced, a testament to Bates and her performance.

What “About Schmidt” gets right are the small details of a life not so much lived as existed, such as the retirement party Woodmen throws for Warren, which feels more like a wake than a celebration, or when Warren returns to his childhood home to see that it’s been turned into a tire store.

"My bedroom was over there," Warren says to the bewildered manager. "And the living room was over there." The emotional pull of that scene comes from the idea that for Warren, there appears to be no room left for living. His quest to overcome the deep emptiness and grief he feels at this moment in his life is what makes "About Schmidt" such a memorable and ultimately moving film.

Grade: A