Search - About Schmidt on DVD

Len Cariou - Ray
Howard Hesseman - Larry
June Squibb - Helen Schmidt
Cheryl Hamada - Saundra

A man has some lessons to learn as his life moves past retirement, among other life changing challenges. Jack Nicholson does a good job, as always.

Definition of the Q.P.I.D. (Quirky Prententious Indie Dramedy

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

'About Schmidt' is an example of a quintessential type of film which I term the Q.P.I.D. (short for 'Quirky Pretentious Indie Dramedy'). The Q.P.I.D. usually has a sad-sack protagonist who on the surface doesn't like himself. He must undergo a journey of self-discovery before he finds his 'true nature'. We can only understand the self-discovery in terms of the sad-sack protagonist's relationship to the antagonists in the movie—who usually are a class of people who are beneath his station. The 'self-discovery' will always reflect the unconscious double-edged (both pretentious and contemptuous) message of the film's writer/director (in this case, Alexander Payne) which is revealed in the form of 1) an epiphany, where the sad sack has reclaimed a long-lost kindly nature as well as 2) the retention of a feeling of smug superiority.

Our sad sack protagonist in question is Warren Schmidt, a Nebraska actuary who has just retired after many years of service for a drab insurance company. From the opening shots, the Midwest itself is depicted as a drab, dull and routine place to live one's life. Schmidt represents the typical Midwesterner who is cut off from his emotions. His wife is not only matronly looking but thoroughly unappealing (the closeup on her armpit and backside as Warren narrates his litany of the things he doesn't like about her sets the tone of contempt the viewer is supposed to feel about the characters Warren is pitted against throughout the film).

Soon we're introduced to a whole host of quirky unlikeable losers. There's phony Gary, Warren's replacement at the insurance company, who promised to keep in touch with Warren at his retirement party but is fast to get away from him when Warren shows up at the office looking for company. And what about Ray, Warren's supposed best friend? It turns out that Warren discovers a treasure trove of old letters detailing his affair with Warren's wife many years in the past.

The family members are even worse. Randall, the water bed salesman and Warren's son-in-law has no guilt feelings about trying to suck Warren into participating in a pyramid scheme while he's in a period of mourning over the recent death of his wife. And Warren's daughter, Jeannie, has fallen for the seedy Randall and will not listen to her father as he tries to convince her that her fiancé is a low-life. Randall's mother, Roberta, thinks nothing of trying to seduce Warren while they're in a hot tub together (a word of caution: try to avoid the brief but unflattering shots of actress Kathy Bates' breasts while she's in the hot tub). Are there any sympathetic characters in this movie?

There's a framing device in 'About Schmidt' where Warren signs up as the sponsor of a young boy from Tanzania through one of those 'adopt-a-foreign-child' agencies. Warren's 'letters' to 'Ndugu', the Tanzanian child (who we never meet) are wholly inappropriate and reflect his inability to connect with other people. Nonetheless, Jack Nicholson's dry narration of his communications with the boy end up being the only truly amusing aspect of the film.

Following the sudden death of his wife (perhaps one of the few honest and realistic scenes in the movie), Warren basically starts to decompensate; without his wife, his house becomes a mess and he ends up looking like a homeless bum. Egoless Warren's slide into 'despair' is supposed to be funny—Payne wants us to laugh at him (not with him). Soon Warren narcissisticly decides to drive out to visit his daughter in Denver in his 35 foot Winnebago (motorized trailer) but she rebuffs him.

Warren then drives around the Midwest in his journey of self-discovery. Before having his epiphany where he can 'forgive' his wife, Warren makes an ugly pass at a woman inside a trailer in a trailer park. Somehow Warren comes to realize that the pass was 'uncool' and now he sits underneath the stars and realizes that maybe his wife wasn't so bad after all. Warren suddenly has become a bit sensitive—he has feelings of shame! But Warren's transformation rings hollow—the film's scenarist cannot disguise his own feelings of contempt for his characters (the wife was depicted as so unlikeable, how can we have feelings of sympathy for her?).

Has Warren really become a kinder and nobler human being at the end or has he simply learned to be more tactful? During the wedding toast, Warren does display a new found set of social skills. He tactfully toasts the bride and groom (as well as the groom's family) without displaying his true feelings (it's obvious that he's still contemptuous of the dysfunctional family as we see him run into the bathroom, almost ready to throw up!).

Schmidt reflects Writer/Director Payne's own voice. It's a pretentious voice that seeks undeserved accolades. On the one hand, he wants us to applaud Schmidt's self-discovery—but at the same time Schmidt remains smugly condescending to those all around him. There's one exception however—his bond with the Tanzanian child who he's never met. For the child, Schmidt is able to muster a few tears as well as a smile. The dull insurance actuary wasn't dull (and wasn't such a sad sack) after all. Schmidt (Payne) belongs to a class of the chosen few who are alive—who can feel. The Everyman rises above his conformist milieu—he's got a heart but also prides himself on setting himself above the neurotic losers—the lowlifes who are unable to express emotions.

The Q.P.I.D. can never display the honesty of its convictions. The film's scenarist unconsciously creates an entire class of straw men who he easily is able to shoot down. The hero's transformation into a sensitive soul is always unearned and undeserved--at its core, there is only contempt and a smug sense of self-satisfaction!

I found this movie hilarious. Schmidt is a complaining self-focused narrow curmudgeon who finds himself retired without a wife to wait on him hand and foot and suddenly without purpose. When his daughter decides to marry Schmidt plans a cross country trip to her wedding and begins to widen his horizons. His self-revealing letters to his overseas adopt-a-child are hilariousily inappropriate. They begin with complaining about his wife to bemoaning her death and we are releaved at the end to find....oh,no I can't tell. You just have to see this unusual comedy.

This is the story of a recently retired man who is trying tho find meaning in his life after the cessation of his job and the death of his wife. Jack does a superb job of depicting the stages of grief that Schmidt goes through. The outside hot tub scene is hilarious with Kathy Bates and Jack.

This was an interesting movie. Jack Nicholson is, of course, a fabulous actor and did a wonderful job. He is an old man alone in the world, and I felt very sorry for him at times. In his loneliness, he begins to financially support and write to a little boy in a third world country. He tells this child all of his troubles. It is quite humerous and ends very well. A scene with Jack and Kathy Bates in a hot tub just about freaked me out. But all in all, it was a good movie.