At the grand old age of 65, Jack Nicholson gives one of his finest performances in this understated, bittersweet film from Alexander Payne (Election). Indeed, for the first time in years, Nicholson takes a break from overplayed flamboyance and wicked exaggeration, instead supplying a wonderfully nuanced portrayal of everyman Warren Schmidt, a fragile soul on the cusp of great change after a terribly uneventful life. Initially that change comes in the shape of his retirement from his job as Vice President at a Nebraska insurance company. Soon afterwards, his wife of some 42 years passes away, leaving Warren alone in his oversized and fussy home. His only daughter, Jeannie (Hope Davis) lives in Denver and is about to marry a man, waterbed salesman Randall (Mulroney), whom Warren deeply disapproves of. After a couple of weeks of trying to look after himself, Schmidt flees his suburban home, and with only his confessional letters to a young Tanzanian boy he is sponsoring for company, he sets out on a road trip, which is scheduled to include his daughter's nuptials.
Although About Schmidt contains more genuine laughs than most other comedies in recent memory, it is more interested in the study of an ordinary character, than wringing cheap inconsequential laughs. Payne manages to negotiate the remarkably thin line between drama, comedy and pathos, offering a deft analysis of Mid-America by way of the pent up frustrations of a man who feels that his life has passed him by. In equal measures, moving and hilarious, About Schmidt borders on exceptional. See it.
