"Schmidt Happens"

Hey, I resent your taking that name in vain. My boy scout master's name was Paul Schmidt, and he is one of my heroes on this planet. I've thought of him often during the past half century, and always with good, positive thoughts of a fellow human that shared his love of scouting. c.i.

Really appreciate Nicholson.
He ruled in As Good As It Gets.

Looking forward to Schmidt. The clips look like this may be a great one for him. And love that Kathy Bates.

Will come to discuss after I see it.

I saw About Schmidt, and I'm sorry to say I was disappointed in it. I agree that Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates gave great performances, but I found the movie as a whole to be flat and uninvolving. I'm not exactly sure why I felt that way. It wasn't because I was thought -- as some critics did -- that the movie was offensively condescending toward middle Americans. (It may well have been so, but that wasn't what bothered me about the movie.) I think that what kept the movie from working for me was its failure to make clear what Schmidt was feeling, and why. I'm not saying I want to be hit over the head with explanations, but if I'm going to spend two hours with a character and care about what happens to him, I need to know something about who he is and what makes him tick, and I didn't find that the movie told me that about Schmidt.

To give an example: early in the movie, there's a scene that takes place in a restaurant where a retirement dinner is being held for Schmidt. In the middle of the speeches, Schmidt excuses himself, leaves the table, goes into another part of the restaurant, sits down at the bar, and orders a drink. End of scene. Now, there are any number of reasons why he might have done that: he might have been so moved by the speeches that he left the table to hide his emotions, he might have been so bored by the speeches that he couldn't stand to sit through another minute of them, he might have desperately needed a vodka and tonic and had given up hope of flagging down a waiter. I suspect that the boredom explanation is the one we're supposed to believe, but I suspect that only because the character is played by Jack Nicholson, not because the movie gives me any reason to believe it.

I also would have liked a clearer idea of what Schmidt's relationship with his daughter was like. The daughter responds to his attempted interference in her marriage plans by accusing him of not having paid enough attention to her earlier in her life. Yet what we see of Schmidt hardly makes him seem the workaholic type who was so absorbed in his career that he ignored his family. (I understand that, in the novel -- which I haven't read -- Schmidt was a Wall Street lawyer rather than a midwestern actuary. Maybe something was lost in the translation.) Are we supposed to take the daughter's accusation at face value, or is she just flying off the handle because of all the stress she's under? Again, the movie doesn't make it clear.

There are many things to admire in the movie, and I'm certainly not saying that anyone who liked it is wrong, but I wish I had been more moved by it.

bree, You're a tough critic. I didn't see the movie, but your criticisms sounds like pretty good ones to me, and it's made my decision not to see the movie much easier. We don't go see that many movies anyway, so that eliminates one from our potential list for 2003. c.i.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but plan to because I really respect Nicholson's work. I think the problem, Bree, is that this kind of movie is really the hardest of all to make and to make interesting for the general viewer. By comparison, a swashbuckler like The Two Towers is a breeze for a good director -- just make sure the action squences are state-of-the-art exciting and you'll have the audience on the edge of their seats. But how do you manage to sustain interest in an aging middle-class nobody to whom nothing very exciting happens? How do you get the audience to identify with someone who is not a hero and has no pretensions to being a hero? Tough call there.

Well put MA.

bree
Schmidt reminds me of the Peggy Lee song, 'Is that All There Is?'
Warren Schmidt is an unexceptional person, disappointed in his life and painfully aware that it is mostly behind him. As the woman at the campground said, he's a 'sad sad man'.
The Warren Schmidt's of this world are legion. They are all around us living out their lives in quiet desperation, plodding inexorably towards the grave.

Cathy Bates' eccentric but happy and optimistic character provides a dramatic contrast to Warren Schmidt's existential despair.

It is not a cheerful film (although it has it's comic moments) but IMO it is very well done. Nicholson's character in the end is eloquent and seems to find some meaning in his life after all.

I thought Schmidt's being an actuary worked well, and provided the basis for some poignant insights.

Incidentally, IMO Schmidt left the retirement party and went to the bar because he was having a hard time maintaining the facade of cheerfulness and optimism.

"Schmidt" left me somewhat unmoved as well.

If director Alexander Payne (a native of Omaha, NE) meant to show how some Mid-western males of the 20th Century did not relate emotionally to their families, then he hit the nail on the head.

I grew up in the Midwest and my father was all business.

There is a certain truth Mr. Payne achieves in this film as well as in his film "Election".

Haven't seen About Schmidt. Both Nicholson and Bates are always tremendous. Together . . . well, I just can't wait!

WilliamHenry

I think you're going to like it.

Extra bonus: Nude shot of Cathy Bates.

Bree, I have not seen this movie, but am eager to do so. I worked for 45 years in the printing business (pretty big printing jobs). In those 45 years I doubt I missed 10 days other than vacations. Most days I worked at least ten hours and sometimes more. Almost every job was a crisis. It was pretty interesting work, but I've been out of it for several years now. I look back on it, and it all seems to have happened in just a few minutes, and it seems like there was no point in it--like nothing worthwhile or meaningful was ever accomplished. Luckily for me, when I retired I found an study program for old dudes at the local university. It was like a dream come true, and I've never looked back.

I think Schmidt may have seen his work much as I see mine. Perhaps he left the party because it was too artificial to bear. He's may be a man for whom our set of socio-political values had no meaning, and he found nothing to supply meaning.

As you can see from this post, it's a subject close to my heart, and I'm wanting to see if the movie explores the issues I'v been talking about.

Thanks for your good review.

Hazlitt

I will be candid also.

I too identified with the Nicholson character, in the sense that his life had not fulfilled his hopes and yet was approaching its end.

It was that feeling that made me radically alter my life four years ago and start a new path.

I suspect this film will resonate somewhat more with men. Some of whom will identify with Warren Schmidt as I did and perhaps you will.

Here's a review of the film and a retrospective on Nicholson's career by Stanley Kaufman of the New Republic. It's worth taking the time to read it.

http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030113&s=kauffmann011303

jjorge, I think you may be on to something when you say you suspect that About Schmidt "will resonate somewhat more with men". I have a job I find unsatisfying in every way except economically, yet I didn't feel the same sense of kinship with Schmidt that you felt, and that I suspect Hazlitt will also feel when he sees the movie. Why is that, do you suppose? My guess is that it's because men tend to define themselves in terms of their jobs to a much greater extent than women do, so if a man finds his job meaningless, he's likely to think his life is meaningless too. But I'd like to know what you think.

Thanks for the link to the Kauffmann review. I like Kauffmann's writing, but I don't like to read his review of a movie before I see the movie because he often gives away more of the plot than I like to know in advance, and then I usually forget to go back and read his review after I've seen the movie.

That's very insightful, Bree. You're right. Men tend to identify with the work they do much more than women. This may change in time, as more and more women not only enter the work force but become "professionals" in the work they do. But a man has always been identified by what his job is. "He's a doctor" or "He's a stock broker" or "He works for the phone company" are ways to immediately identify a man. A woman does something for a living, a man is a doctor or lawyer or teacher or reporter.

jjorge,bree, & MA, I think that most men do identify with their jobs more than women; although, I have met some pretty talented and dedicated women who were disgusted with the meaninglessness of work.

One advantage women may have, if I may use that term, is that in the formative years they may not have been so carefully indoctrinated with the notion that work was the big thing in life. They may, therefore, have had more of a chance to develope other life values; thus, freeing them from the necessity of believing and feeling that the career is all there is (well, except, perhaps Sunday football).

Hazlitt

Well said.

I agree with bree--I found the movie unsatisfactory. For me the problem was that I just didn't care enough what happened to Schmidt. And the movie fudged certain key issues. For example, he is opposed to his daughter's marriage. And yet the prospective son in law is not presented as a bad guy, a bit of a jerk perhaps, but we never see why Schmidt is so down on him, so it is hard to know what his opposition is all about. Also I love Nicholson as a rule, but I think he was the wrong actor to play such a drab, ordinary character. Too much of his vivid persona kept showing through. Gene Hackman, who knows how to be colorless, would have been a better choice.

Ditto, Larry, though I can understand Schmidt's feelings about the proposed son-in-law. Feeling himself a failure, he did not want to see his daughter end up with a comparable "failure" as a husband. I think most parents have idealistic visions of prospective spouses for their children.

The not caring about what happens to Schmidt is similar to what I found with respect to the protagonist in the first portion of "The Pianist" as I mentioned on an earlier thread.

In many ways, the story is about alienation in America. One may have a well-paying job and a family and still go through life duty-bound and repressed.

His working life was dedicated to living out the american dream, as witnessed by the confortable home and the huge RV he and his wife purchased for their life after retirement. He is not a weathly man, but he has done well enough by working every day of his life and sticking to the demands of the routine.

It is not until he retires that he gets his first impulse to do something outside of himself, which is to become a foster parent to an African boy. In his letters to his foster child, he lets loose for the first time. The wackiness of Shmidt opening up to a 6 year old boy who lives in a village with no running water speaks of the desperation Shmidt has held in reserve.

When Shmidt's wife dies he decides to take road trip out to see his daughter in Colorado, she is curt and impatient with him. So begins the viewer's glimpse into the strained relationship of father and daughter.

He has a number of mishaps on his trip to Colorado that give expression to just how protected and awkward he has been socially. Despite his daughter getting married, this is not a joyful occasion for Shmidt.

When he returns home and has recieved his first reponse from his foster son, it sums up the sadness and the fullness he feels at that moment. I thought it was a brilliant ending, so genuine.

The movie follows a real-life pace, complete with all the bad taste and the tackiness where ever he goes. The characters are real, their ugly sides are exposed. There is nothing pretty about this film, except, perhaps his relationship with his foster son.

Larry R

Schmidt is like many of us fathers who, at a certain emotional level feel that no man is good enough for their 'little girl'.
It is OUR problem of course, and we have to accept that 'another man' is now at the center of daughter's affections.

That acceptance is easier when the future son-law is someone we like and respect.

I think it's pretty clear that Schmidt thinks his prospective son-in-law is a boob. I think he calls him a 'Nincompoop' in one of his letters to the foster child.
(in truth, he sure SEEMED like a nincompoop to me!)

It's also clear that the daughter LOVES the nincompoop and loves him flaws and all. ( I find that quite touching )

IMO Schmidt finally accepts him for that reason.

Gala
Nice analysis. I agree with you that the ending was brilliant.
It was also very moving.