About Schmidt - the trailer promises a comedy.

The movie defies definition. Is it a depressing comedy, or a dramatic coming of age film, with comedic touches?
One thing is for certain. You will LOVE it. Or, you will HATE it. I guess that's two things.

Pushed into retirement by the insurance company he poured his heart into, Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) faces endless hours with his wife, traveling in an RV, cross-country, just to please her. Suddenly, she passes away, and he's left to decide what to make of the rest of his life. It's sure not going his way: he can't keep up with the household chores that his wife made look so effortless...his daughter is marrying a man he despises, and Warren has to go and spend time with the couple and "his" over-the-top relatives. No one wants Warren to drop back at the office, and they make that perfectly clear. The only outlet Warren has is the joy he takes from "fostering" a poor African child. The fostering initiative is long distance -- Warren sends money, and some deliciously inappropriate letters to the six year old.

What happens when Warren escapes his present, and goes on the road to nowhere, facing some of his worst fears for the future, is a masterful, gloomy unraveling of Warren's old life, in favor of a new life with some luster.

Not much plot, is there? That's why so many viewers were bored with the film. There's a good possibility they would never have deliberately seen it, if it weren't for the comedic film trailer -- but so it goes. Director Andrew Payne captured a wider audience with the trailer, but it wasn't necessarily full of people who would see the film for what it was, and read into the ordinariness of life. Instead, they wanted satire and laughs, laughs, laughs.

Granted, there are plenty of laughs sprinkled liberally throughout this movie. You can laugh yourself silly just by looking at Dermot Mulroney (and his startling hairdo), cast against type, as the son-in-law to be that every father would try to get out of his little girl's life..what a loser!

There is only one thing funnier than Nicholson trying to get comfortable going to be on a waterbed without the baffles, and that's watching him wake up after a night of "sleep" on the damn bed. There are so many moments of not only wry humor, but physical comedy from Nicholson, moments that stop just short of being slapstick. And yet, we are utterly invested in Nicholson as a dour retired actuary with a simmering layer of rage and disappointment in his life, just below the surface.

About Schmidt is a tour de force for Nicholson, second only in 2002 to the role played by the incredible Daniel Day Lewis (in "Gangs of New York" )in terms of what SHOULD have won the Oscar. Adrien Brody, the eventual winner, was a distant third.

Nicholson is alone on film for much of the movie, in his genteel, out of style residence, or on the open blank screen that is the Midwestern highway. It is a "coming of age" film for a 66 year old man, who is facing the realities of his ordinary life for perhaps the first time. Prior to this, he always had his job to sustain him. Not for one moment can you pity Nicholson, because you know of his secret life....

That's the one where he is the sponsor and "foster father" of Ngudu, a six year old African Child. Schmidt's letters to this child are the only place where he does not suppress his anger and sense of helplessness at the way his life turned out.

And it is this sense of helplessness, almost a wistfulness, that the film is truly about. Warren has to gulp back his distaste for his daughter's (Hope Davis) upcoming marriage. If she goes through with it, will she have even less of a life than he did? Davis gives us a skilled picture of the sense of exasperation that most adult children have with their parents.

Nicholson is arguably the most skilled actor of his generation. There are those that prefer Anthony Hopkins and Sean Connery (etc.!) - but unlike them, Nicholson is blessed with a face that can convey whatever he wishes it to. He's willing to act in farce and physical comedy as well as drama and action, and these types of comedy have given us some of the finest performances of his career.
He's not alone here; in addition to fine work by Mulroney and Davis, he's joined by character actors Kathy Bates (also on the Oscar nominee track) and the delightful Howard Hesseman. They are outstanding and believable as "fringe" baby boomers.

As for the film quality - the editing sometimes misses its mark, but it is a gem, although probably too sad and depressing for some. Small touches of irony revolve around things like Schmidt's dead wife, Helen, who was a terrific housewife, but even she had folded baskets of laundry scattered throughout the various rooms of the house. How many of us do not?

There's a ton of symbolism in the film as well - none better than the feature near film's end on the historical bridge monument at Kearney, Nebraska. It helps Schmidt put all of our comfortable lives in perspective - when we compare our difficulties with those of the pioneers before us.

The DVD is wonderfully translated to film, and the sound is amazing. One of the possible greatest losses of the film was a scene where Warren participates in a parody of Jack Nicholson's famous diner scene with the waitress in "Five Easy Pieces" (1970). Director Payne cut the scene in the final edit, even though sneak preview audiences were mad about it. Payne apparently felt it wasn't in keeping with Warren Schmidt's character (true) and that it would be a distraction (false).

There aren't enough words to convey how fine a movie is "About Schmidt". You will walk away much richer for the film experience. Don't see it if you want to be entertained - see it as a triumph of the ordinary life over the Cinderella life.