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| A man sits alone at a desk in an empty office, watching with
a look of anxiety and resignation as the seconds tick by on the wall clock.
The man is sixty-six year old actuary Warren Schmidt, and he is waiting
for the clock to strike five, as this will mark the beginning of his retirement
from Woodmen Insurance.
This brief introductory scene to 'About Schmidt' encapsulates the essence of the whole film, which, unusually for a Hollywood feature, has no conventional narrative. To be sure, there are events in the film - chiefly the funeral of Schmidt's wife (June Squibb) and the wedding of his daughter (Hope Davis) - but these tend to happen around rather than to Schmidt, and he remains in the end unchanged - a bitter, lonely man, waiting apprehensively for death, and convinced that he has failed to make any impact on the lives of those around him. Although he travels from state to state in his Winnebago Adventurer, ultimately Schmidt ends up right where he started, and so the film is not so much a story as a kinetic portrait. But what a portrait! Schmidt is a monster of a man: curmudgeonly, angry, arrogant, unappreciative, miserly, misanthropic, manipulative, insincere, selfish, and full of disappointment, fear and self-loathing. In short, not a nice man, but just as fascinating to watch as a car hurtling out of control towards innocent bystanders. The entire cast of 'About Schmidt' is excellent, but this is ultimately Jack Nicholson's film. Odious one minute, pitiable the next, Nicholson gives his all to this role, but without resorting to any of the exaggerated theatrics which he has shown in recent films like 'Batman' and 'As Good As It Gets'. AND you get to see his wrinkly arse! Director Alexander Payne, who debuted with the sardonic high school political satire 'Election', shows here that he is still, along with Todd Solondz, the master of mean-spirited comedy. Thanks to Payne's unflinching attention to cringe-worthy detail, this study of an actuary unable to pass his own audit is an uncomfortably mordant piece of entertainment. Funny, defiantly unsentimental, and in the end genuinely moving. Anton Bitel, 27.01.03 |
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