About Schmidt: the review

Pre-children, Darin and I used to average going to the movie theaters once a week. Post-baby, I’ve probably seen 10 movies in the theater. (Darin’s seen more, because I encourage him to go to movies with his friends.) Going to a movie is a big deal these days. It’s becoming a smaller deal all the time though — of those 10 movies, I’ve seen 1 I can unqualifiedly recommend: About A Boy.

Today, however, we saw About Schmidt.

About Schmidt is the story of Warren Schmidt, a 65-year-old man who retires from his job as an actuary in an insurance company and whose life slides down from there. The movie is not really so much about what happens to Warren, because not very much does. It’s a character study.

Which means there’s plenty of acting on display.

I hadn’t heard much about this film before we went to go see it, except that Jack Nicholson was fabulous as Schmidt, uncharacteristically egoless in his depiction of a frumpy 65-year-old man. Except you’re talking about Jack Nicholson, which means that being dour and small is almost as grandstanding as his more scenery-chewing roles. Nicholson is good, but I was left more with, “Wow, Nicholson was restrained,” rather than, “Wow, that actor really inhabited that character.”

I admit, however, there probably won’t be too many films where Jack Nicholson reminds me of my father.

Everyone is good but all the characters are so grating it doesn’t matter. You can admire the technique, but you don’t want to experience it one minute longer than you have to. Writer and director Alexander Payne also did Election, which Darin and I loved, but that movie too had grating, annoying characters and I wouldn’t want to sit through it again. Alexander Payne: in search of reality via annoyance.

Darin’s take this movie was that it was one of the most real films he’s seen in a while, in terms of character, behavior, dialogue, but real life is not always a good reason to go see a movie. My description of the film was that it was a depiction of a man living a life of quiet desperation, and at the end of two hours the audience feels much the same way.

Darin’s already seen The Two Towers twice. Maybe I’ll go give that a whirl.

ps – Before About Schmidt was a preview for Anger Management, an Adam Sandler movie in which he plays straight man to none other than Jack Nicholson. It was clear from the preview that the main direction for that movie was, “We only have enough scenery for one of you, and Sandler, you lost the coin toss. Okay, marks everyone.”