About Schmidt (2002)

Retirement can force a man to wonder whether his life has meant anything at all. Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt," which he co-wrote with Jim Taylor, confirms Jack Nicholson's status as a national treasure, though it's sure to divide audiences. Riding high after "Election," Payne and Taylor loosely adapted Louis Begley's novel to suit their comic sensibility, turning Nicholson's Warren Schmidt into a 66-year-old Omaha insurance actuary, newly retired and worn down by decades of routine and a passionless marriage. Lonely and adrift, he begins sponsoring a little boy in Tanzania through a TV charity ad, and his rambling, painfully honest letters to the child become the film's narration. When his wife (June Squibb) dies suddenly, Warren discovers old love letters revealing a long-ago betrayal, and he sets out in their huge Winnebago to reclaim his life. His mission is to persuade his daughter (Hope Davis) not to marry her dimwitted fiancé (Dermot Mulroney), a Denver waterbed salesman whose freewheeling, divorced mother (Kathy Bates) has her own collection of oddball quirks, including a hot tub encounter that leaves Warren flustered. Nicholson captures the seething anger beneath Schmidt's quiet resignation perfectly, and often hilariously, though Payne and Taylor can seem coldly contemptuous of their Midwestern characters. Think of it as a bleaker take on Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru," until Schmidt finds meaning, and a small reward, in a quiet gesture of kindness. Nicholson and Bates earned Oscar nominations. Love it or hate it, you won't soon forget it.