Movie Reviews

Seeing how Jack Nicholson is in practically every scene of this movie, it was pretty important that he do a good job in his role as newly-retired insurance actuary Warren Schmidt. Not to worry though, because Nicholson is really amazing (in an 'understated' way). This is probably the most 'un-Nicholson' performance I've seen from Nicholson (no "Heeeere's Johnny!" in this one...), but it's also one of his best performances overall, I think.

About Schmidt is one of those movies that focuses much more on its characters than it does on its plot. That's totally cool with me, because I think that any story with really interesting characters will usually be better than a really fascinating story with dull characters. But in a nutshell, the film is about Warren Schmidt's efforts to adjust to the world of retirement, and to a world in which he loses his wife and believes that he will soon lose his only daughter, by marriage to a "nincompoop" mattress salesman (a really funny role played by a guy named Dermot Mulroney).

This is also one of those movies that is so nicely able to be alternatively funny and then sad, and then often funny and sad at the same time (I loved the wedding-speech scene in which Schmidt -- totally opposed to the marriage, but not able to speak his true feelings -- manages to talk a lot, without really saying anything). The key to this feeling, I think, really is Nicholson. I'm so used to watching him play energetic, bizarre, and eccentric characters that I was really amazed at how well he could also play a "sad, sad man" (as one of the other characters describes him in the film).

Overall, About Schmidt is a really worthwhile movie, with a truley excellent performance by Nicholson.