About Schmidt

A movie by Alexander Payne

With Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates, and others

Monika says:

Insurance agent Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) has just retired and, like lots of others before him, he suddenly realizes that the long awaited retirement turns out to be a pain in the neck. The first shock is that he has been replaced by a youngster who in his opinion is still wet behind his ears, not to mention the fact that all of Warren's files have already been disposed of when he makes a last call to the firm. But the worst is that after a short time at home, he finds out that his wife (Hope Davis) is getting terribly on his nerves.

Warren looks for a new task and becomes the sponsor of a little boy in Tanzania to whom he writes long letters, telling him in detail about his misery. After the sudden death of his wife he decides to visit his daughter in order to help her with the preparations for her wedding, even though he thinks his soon to be son-in-law is an utter jerk. The journey turns into a search for a new meaning of life for his remaining years.

When I think 'Jack Nicholson', I recall at first a couple of movies where he played parts I found utterly disgusting. But apparently Nicholson is still able to surprise me. Not that I would really like Warren Schmidt – on the contrary, I wasn't sure if I should rather give him a hug or kick his butt – but in the end his good, human side won and the situations he got himself into were funny enough to make me laugh, though throughout the whole movie you don't really know if you should laugh or cry. Everything is so much like in real life: the paranoid father thinking no man is good enough for his daughter, certainly not that long-haired bed-salesman, as well as the search for affection which our hero experiences from two entirely different perspectives; once he is the harassing male, the second time he is being harassed himself. In the end, Warren has to put up with his new life like everyone else has to under similar circumstances. It takes him two hours to reach this point, two hours of fun and laughter for the delighted audience.

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Monika

Last changes: 12/10/03