About Schmidt

Customer reviews:

Brilliant acting, black humor, hard truths., 2008-06-23
Nicholson nails this character, a man whose life is quite commonplace. He has done his duty. He has supported a wife and an only daughter. He is fussily punctilious about his job, and in that he takes some satisfaction. Then he retires and everything changes.

One by one the elements of his self-image are destroyed. He is not important at his job. He returns to 'help' his replacement, and is brushed off. His daughter lives in another city. His wife, whose steadfastly cheerful manner gets on his nerves, is someone which whom he no longer has any sense of connection. He idealizes his relationship with his daughter, and despises as unworthy the shifty and none-too-bright man she plans to marry.

Unhappy as he emerges into the emptiness of his retirement, and without insight into his lack of depth, lack of interests, and lack of any authentic sense of connection with any other human being, he watches television, flipping the channels. On impulse, while watching a commercial for a foreign-aid charity, he decides to "adopt" a foster son in Africa, and commits to send money monthly to the charity.

It is then that he reveals the bizarre degree of his alienation. He begins writing letters to this little boy, as if a child from another culture was in some way able to understand and relate to Schmidt's situation.

He has some serious shocks in store. First, he learns that his relationship with his daughter is not the simple and affectionate one he assumed it was. She resents that he has selected the second-cheapest coffin for his wife's funeral. She resents that Schmidt has asked for money from his wife's investments to buy a mobile home. His daughter dismisses his explanation, that his wife wanted a more luxurious model than Schmidt believed they could afford -- as if sharing the expenses of retirement with her husband was somehow unjust to the dead woman. And his daughter's words reveal that her mother had been complaining about Schmidt's behavior to her.

He learns that his wife had betrayed him in at least one other way -- she'd had an affair, years before, with his best friend.

And his daughter reveals that she basically wants his financial support, but does not want further intimacy.

He meets her fiancé's family, and they confirm his worst suspicions. They are vulgar, squabbling -- and poor. They constantly bring up the subject of money -- his -- always with a hand held out for some of it, either for dodgey investment or obligations they presume are his. Director Alexander Payne elicited brilliant performances from Bates and the other actors who played this dysfunctional family's members.

Then he makes a social blunder, mistaking a compassionate woman's words as sexually inviting. Her shocked reaction sends him into panicky flight!

And it is at this point that he receives a letter from a nun who works at the African charity to which he contributes. The child Ndugu can't read or write, so she's writing on his behalf to inform Schultz that the young boy wishes him well.

(I can't avoid an aside at this point -- in 'real life', what on earth would this nun have thought of Schmidt's letters to a little child, discussing matters such as his status in an insurance company, marital fidelity, 'trailer-trash' in-laws, and so forth? Surely a high point of black humor.)

And Schmidt caves. Finally -- and this is his terminal failure -- he is touched by Ndugu's words of gratitude and concern -- or by the conventional words of the nun -- and experiences what -- for him -- is an epiphany. He will do the 'right thing'. He will do his duty. He attends the wedding, says all the right things as the bride's father, and then returns to Omaha, to await the end of his days.

Film Noir, indeed! But I thought it was great. One gets sick of sentimentality.

Bursting the bubble on the American dream, and finding it's not so bad. , 2008-06-20
An old man walks into a dark, inert house and stands over his desk as if wondering what he will do next. His wife has died, his daughter married, and his job has given him the standard "gold watch" for his retirement and all but forced him out so younger blood can move in with vulture-like precision and take over. This is the life of Warren Schmidt, a tired, quiet and suppressed man who is discovering that his whole life has been little more than busy-work. Ultimately, he has discovered that nothing he worked so hard for in his life has made him the least bit happy or content and now...

...and now he stands over that desk staring at mail. There before his glance is one letter addressed to him from Africa. He opens it up, begins reading, and finally, from the depths of his soul, he lets out a tear-filled smile.

This is the story of Schmidt, an odd, funny tale about a man who's lived a blind, predictable life and has found he is no longer content. He wants something more, but doesn't know what it is. In the end, as Schmidt discovers, you will see that happiness is often times found in simplicity.

4.5 out of 5