About Schmidt **** (2002, Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates) – Classic Movie Review 457

Co-writer/director Alexander Payne’s 2002 wry comedy, loosely based on the 1996 novel by Louis Begley, focuses on the same late-life crisis situation and similar resolution through an unpredictable road trip that he explores so profitably again in Nebraska (2013).

Jack Nicholson is on scalding form as Warren Schmidt, a sad old bloke confronting imminent retirement and the recognition that his life’s a failure. He’s been leading a safe, predictable life working in the insurance industry in Omaha, Nebraska, for more years than he’d care to remember.

Suddenly, his wife dies and his hard, selfish, estranged daughter Jeannie (Hope Davis) is about to marry Randall Hertzel (Dermot Mulroney), a man he doesn’t like at all. And so Schmidt embarks on an unpredictable RV journey to attend his daughter’s wedding in Denver.

The piece is bleak, especially for a comedy, but it’s truly honest and extremely moving, and Nicholson is just brilliant. This is the real actor Nicholson, the one we don’t see too often. He’s achingly good as someone so many miles from his real self, a man tormented by emptiness, lack of fulfilment and ordinariness. Kathy Bates is a knockout too, as Mulroney’s mad mom, Roberta Hertzel.

Nicholson was rewarded by winning the Golden Globe as Best Actor and Payne and his co-writer Jim Taylor won Best Screenplay. Nicholson was also Oscar nominated as Best Actor and Bates as Best Supporting Actress.

It was the American Film Institute Movie of the Year. They said it ‘puts a new face on film satire, embodied in a towering performance by Jack Nicholson. The movie presents America’s heartland with a richness of detail that brings a unique light to this funny, sad and always captivating tale.’

Payne’s other work includes Election (1999), Sideways (2004), The Descendants (2011) and Nebraska (2013). Every one a winner.

Double Oscar-winner Payne’s home town is Omaha, Nebraska, the scene of so many of his films.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 457

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com