Directed by Alexander Payne
Screenplay by Payne and Jim Taylor, based on the novel
by Louis Begley
Starring Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney
and Kathy Bates
Rated R; 124 minutes
The rap on Jack Nicholson, at least recently, has been that
"he always just plays Jack." In other words, that
the Lakers-game-attending, Lara-Flynn-Boyle-doing movie star
known as Jack Nicholson outshines any role he could possibly
play, any acting he still might bother to do beyond a strategic
raise of the eyebrows here and there.
It's a nice theory, and there's no question that Jack is
undeniably a movie star, but he is still an actor. ("I'm
not an actor. I'm a movie star!" proclaimed Peter O'Toole's
Alan Swann in My Favorite Year, and everybody knew
exactly what he meant.) But in fact, Nicholson may be giving
too good a performance in About Schmidt.
It's too good in the sense that Jack has effectively shrunken
his persona to fit the blinkered, conservative worldview of
Warren Schmidt, a just-retired Midwestern insurance executive
who, after years of unreflective, uninspired living, is trying
to at last make some connections that feel real. And while
this is a potentially fascinating, potentially very funny
concept, it drags along, at least for its first hour, as slowly
as an actual insurance executive's retirement dinner.
The dullness is disappointing, especially considering the
filmmakers' previous feature was the mean-spirited but sprightly
satire Election. That movie not only beautifully balanced
goody-goody Reese Witherspoon with earnest knucklehead Matthew
Broderick, it allowed the audience to catch up with all the
characters' foibles and self-delusions. About Schmidt
hammers us over the head with the characters' silly self-importance
from the start. Director Alexander Payne and his co-screenwriter
Jim Taylor compare Schmidt visually to a prize cow being put
out to pasture; they trap him in visual frames; and they repeatedly
show him waking up from sleep (with the joke being that no
matter how many times he wakes up, he's still not really awake
- get it?).
In other words, we're never allowed to discover Schmidt's
limitations on our own, because they're being so pointedly
pointed out to us.
There's nothing technically wrong with Nicholson's performance,
and he does find some good moments that express his surprise
at being so alone, so vulnerable and so unable to affect the
world around him.
And thank goodness for the actresses Payne has chosen (his
work with actors overall - including stage veterans Len Cariou
and Harry Groener - is pitch-perfect, even if his conceptions
of the characters are limited). Hope Davis as Schmidt's exasperated,
resentful daughter, about to get married to a ponytailed yutz
(Dermot Mulroney), just can't believe that her father picks
RIGHT NOW to start getting interested in her life. Where was
he when she was growing up? Probably working late at the office
on a tricky actuarial table.
And Kathy Bates, god bless her, plays the mother of the groom
as a woman totally without any kind of boundaries, who will
as quickly inform you about the details of her hysterectomy
as tell you the time of day. Her rampant narcissism and indestructible
good cheer make the second half of the movie a lot more interesting
than the first, which is mostly concerned with Schmidt discovering
how empty his life actually is after the sudden death of his
wife (June Squibb). Bates also shares a hot tub with Jack,
and there's some discreet nudity that's not only totally appropriate
for the character but a lively jolt to the proceedings.
As conceived and directed, Schmidt has too tiny a soul for
his lack of understanding to be a tragedy, yet the film isn't
quite comfortable as the type of all-out comedic satire that
Election turned out to be. Even at the movie's end,
when Schmidt believes he's made the tiniest bit of difference
in the world - and Nicholson tempts us to care about Schmidt
with a bit of honest sentiment - Payne can't let go of the
mocking tone. But if Schmidt is just a self-deluded fool,
what does it say about us that we have spent two hours with
him? Isn't there anything admirable in the fact that he makes
an effort? The choice that Payne seems to present to the audience
is to either feel smug and superior, or to be as big a dope
as Schmidt. Not a pretty set of options.
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