About Schmidt
Finding cinematic inspiration in the mundane, dreary and ordinary things in life can be one of the toughest things to accomplish by any filmmaker but that doesn’t seem to stop Alexander Payne from garnering acclaim with his amazingly funny yet somber efforts which often take skewed points of view about the nature of the human soul. One of his most notable accomplishments is this 2002 release where he managed to score a major casting coup with arguably the most Hollywood of all Hollywood stars in Jack Nicholson, put into another lead role here where he shockingly plays it so close to the vest and understated without any of his patented over the top and charismatic Jack Nicholson Moments that we almost forget who it is that we’re watching. Told by writer / director Payne during their first meeting that he was playing “a small man”, the contrasting way in how Nicholson is surrounded by ordinary, every day people and settings, doing much of his acting through both narration and just mere reaction shots to other people’s acting out in front of him for a change results in a near miraculous melding of legend into common man that makes one appreciate Nicholson even more in his last Oscar nominated performance and last highly talked about outing before his retirement in 2010. His Warren Schmidt is a career lifer, a longtime slave to his job at an insurance firm running statistics whom upon his retirement, is stunned to realize that besides his wife (June Squibb, normally the last person you’d ever expect to see married to Nicholson) who enjoys berating him, he has no real connections whatsoever to any other human beings as even his former coworkers employ a kayfabe style of professionalism that belies their true natures. After a dreadfully insincere retirement party at a bowling alley, his wife drops dead and severs all of his legitimate connections to any living people which is just as well since he had gotten tired of her and was actually welcoming his freedom. But first he has to tolerate his daughter (Hope Davis) flying in for the funeral, an ungrateful, disrespectful little bitch who constantly talks down to him like he’s nothing, but she still allows her dad to financially support her with a weekly upkeep check for both her and her goofy fiancée (Dermot Mulroney pulling his ponytail back so tight that his receding hairline takes center stage). When the daughter accuses her grieving dad of buying a cheap casket and then refuses to stick around and help her dad transition to his new situation because she has to go back to Denver and prepare for HER wedding (amazing her dad was even invited), Schmidt says fuck it and hits the road in his big hoss RV, giving us some beautiful scenery and a glimpse into the twisted marriage of a couple whom Schmidt encounters in the RV park. After the seemingly idiot husband leaves Schmidt alone with his wife, she launches a peerless psychological attack on him, fooling him into thinking that they have an intuitive connection, only to cry rape as she starts to push against him, causing poor Schmidt to flee this feral animal in his RV, running down on his way out the complicit husband who was planning to set him up for either blackmail, a lawsuit or the cops. Schmidt’s frayed relationship with his spoiled rotten daughter is played into ironic contrast when he sees Sally Struthers on TV and decides to sponsor an African child since he already does the same with the little bitch anyway, leading to the justification for the narration when he writes letters to the boy where he opens up COMPLETELY about himself and how he feels. Having already escaped a couple of freaks in the RV park, Schmidt collects himself and drives headlong into Denver to meet the new in laws who needless to say are of a rather liberal nature (whereas Schmidt is shown listening on the radio to Jim Morrison’s alter ego Rush Limbaugh) led by Kathy Bates in full wacky mode as Mulroney’s hippie mother, twice divorced and zeroing in on the widowed Schmidt by getting naked for him (and us) all while Nicholson continues on with his incredibly bemused performance, taking it all in as we and him (rare is the movie where the viewer sees so clearly through the eyes of the main character) grasp even more irony in seeing that Mulroney, Bates and the rest of their nutty alternative family are actually treating him with more respect, dignity and decency than his terrible daughter ever would, even while she was accepting his money as opposed to the African child, essentially having his life and future ensured by his sponsorship not to mention reading his letters and being enthralled by his articulately detailed accounts of his life adventures. In comparison, the goofy family led by Bates are still good hearted enough that we understand that his little girl (who acts out on her fiancée Mulroney constantly as well which he manfully shows restraint over) is really not good enough to marry into THEIR family, although Bates makes it a point to have her ex husband (Mulroney’s dad as played by Legend Howard Hesseman) over for dinner and mercilessly berates him in front of everybody, an hilarious scene for Bates even as one wonders if she’s only doing it to put on a show for their new guest. Once Schmidt accepts the truth of the situation (his own daughter is the worst person he knows), he finally makes peace enough with himself to set up the happy ending (hint: freedom). In the meantime, we get to watch Jack Nicholson in this cinema verité environment going into a Dairy Queen and interacting with (real) employees (whom surely will never forget this experience) all while humbling himself on camera by strapping us in next to him and literally having us go along for the ride…
8/10