About Schmidt

ABOUT SCHMIDT

Rating: A-

Tragedy disguised as comedy.

On his final day of work prior to retirement, insurance actuary Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) sits alone in his office. His desk is cleared and all his folders and notes are neatly packed away into labeled boxes along the far wall. As he silently stares at the clock waiting for 5 pm to roll around, an unspoken sadness lingers in the air. His marking time waiting for his last day to end will serve as an apt metaphor for his life after retirement.

While About Schmidt is being billed as a quirky comedy, if you're expecting lots of belly laughs you're likely to be disappointed. More than anything, it's a tragedy - the chronicle of a man approaching the end of life who suddenly realizes how empty and meaningless his life has been. There are bits of humor interspersed along the way, but they act more to pad out and soften what is basically a rather depressing take on modern life in America.

Writer/Director Alexander Payne (who adapted a novel by Louis Begley) has a way of nailing scenes dead on. When Nicholson abruptly exits his retirement party for a stop at the bar, we understand his feelings of desperation and futility. On the surface, the party's a celebration of all his years of service, but beneath flows an undercurrent of "this is the end of your productive years - this officially closes the book on your accomplishments in life." That we all face this day somewhere down the road makes the scene cut twice as deeply.

Adding to Nicholson's woes is the fact his daughter (Hope Davis) is getting married to a man (Dermot Mulroney) whom he loathes. Just as Nicholson's employer no longer needs him, neither does his daughter. Or so she wishes to think. We get the feeling the marriage itself is destined for some deeply troubled waters, but for her to acknowledge Nicholson's concerns would infringe upon her self-perceived independence. The fact she feels the need to be so independent from him is part of the point of the story. Again, there are a number of scenes involving the wedding and its preparations which ring painfully true, not the least of which is one where Nicholson has just arrived from out of state and the three of them discuss the local highways. It's a minor scene, but everything about it seems so genuine - even down to the way Davis is dressed - that one can't help but admire the filmmakers' eye for getting things right.

In the minor quibble department, some sequences appear to be present only because the main premise couldn't sustain a feature-length movie on its own. In one, Nicholson is invited to dinner by a friendly couple at a trailer park. I'm still scratching my head over that one, since it leads nowhere, reveals nothing we don't already know, and isn't particularly funny. Then there's a scene where he visits his hometown only to find a tire store where the house he grew up in used to be. I understand the point that important landmarks in his life have been callously swept away by change, and that evidence of his mark on the world is being erased before his very eyes. But why does this scene then segue into his trip to a museum? Are the achievements of the pioneers profiled in the museum being contrasted with those of Nicholson's own meager life, or is the scene a satirical barb aimed at what we consider worthy of memorializing? The sequence isn't strong enough to definitively support either point of view, and instead comes off merely as filler material. Perhaps worst of all is a scene in a hot tub with Nicholson and Kathy Bates. It's played entirely for laughs (although I cringed more than I laughed) which is okay, but I could've happily lived the rest of my life without ever seeing Bates in the buff. I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm reluctant to see this film again because I don't want to have to sit through that scene a second time.