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ABOUT SCHMIDT review
God I love THE APARTMENT. Yeah, that 1960 film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacClaine. That movie doesn’t play fair at all. First it feels that it wants to be a situational comedy. There’s a lightness to it at the beginning. It introduces the situation, here’s this upwardly mobile wannabe executive type, that has turned his convenient apartment into a location for those carnal shindigs for his higher ups. Quickly we get the idea that this is a character that is very lonely. He doesn’t have real friends, but tons of acquaintances. He has no love in his life, and frankly it doesn’t seem entirely likely as well. What a great idea for a sitcom, right?
Well, right after things are set up, we discover that while this film is funny, reality… that cold bitter mean and spiteful thing that tears men and women apart equally. We are soon shown that these characters are not the crepe paper of sitcoms, but human beings… nuanced, quirky, feeling deep feelings of regret, loss… They have secret crushes, loves and when these thing turn bitter - suicide is there. Life in this film is every bit as precious and fragile as it is here. Through this film, you see everybody put through the ringer. The result is classic. It is a story about reality – with that quirky slightly off angled knowing wink that… yup, this is life as we know it.
I adore the end of THE APARTMENT.
In a strange way, I had the rather odd notion while watching ABOUT SCHMIDT today that I was watching a sequel to THE APARTMENT. Oh, the Apartment wasn’t there anymore. In fact neither was New York. Jack Lemmon’s Calvin Clifford was being called Warren Schmidt and had been recast with Jack Nicholson. The luminescent Fran Kubelik had become cold and distant, losing her beauty and her figure. The promise at the end of THE APARTMENT was forgotten, as promises of youth are often discarded.
Why did I see this? Well early in the film, Warren Schmidt tells us that this isn’t how it was supposed to be. He had had big plans for Warren Schmidt. He’d innovate, form a company, rule New York as a financial wizard that all would be in awe of. However, when he met his Helen, he sought security… safety… So the dreamer checked that dream for a 9 to 5, heavy over-time, heavy travel position as an account vice president at the fine and out-standing Woodmen Insurance Company.
We’re introduced to Schmidt in an empty boxed up office watching the final seconds of his job tick away. He attends his retirement party and really doesn’t care about any of the speeches, the congratulations and the sincere endorsements by friends and his replacement – well they all seem a bit Memorex, like he’s heard these speeches for others before him. He needs to go sneak a drink.
His wife had long been neglected, seemingly sacrificing her own passion for stability. She didn’t so much have a husband as she had a roommate. She kept her life busy with her child, now off in Denver set to get married, along with elaborate unappreciated dinners, her precious Hummel and Teddy Bears and Thimble collections. We’re not given the focus on her hopes and dreams that we get from Warren, but I get the idea that through her entire marriage, she held tight to the dream that in retirement, she’ll finally leave the house with her husband and have adventures in their astonishingly plush RV. It’s a little dream, but to a house wife that never really has been shown anything, it is as big as her dreams were allowed to get.
Warren’s life is a deeply sad affair. He lies not only to his wife about little things, but to himself and his foster child he’s sponsoring in Africa named Ndugu. What? How’d that happen?
In the short days after his retirement he finds himself staring at the television set in his height of comfort and style recliner, mindless, unfocused… flipping channels. You know that useless drivel hours of television where you flip and see horrors and atrocities like Phyllis Diller, Jim Nabors, thrusting aerobicized bodies, cooking shows and yes… those sad eyes of a starving child in Africa. Well at that moment, when choosing between those images, those choices, those real human eyes staring out from his screen in desperation… in need… They reached Warren Schmidt and they touched something in the heart of this man that had exhausted a life of dealing with insurance and coverages. The $22 dollars a month, it is such a little thing really. Sure, why not?
Even watching how this is handled you see even this as an act of rebellion. He’s CHOOSING to do this on his own. Doesn’t call in his wife to discuss it. When the envelope comes with the picture of “his child” – NDUGU – he stares at it, makes out his check, reads the handbook for what he’s doing for this child. Oh, and he’s supposed to write a personal letter to this child in Africa. These letters are the gateway into who Schmidt is in this film.
He doesn’t write these letters to a child, but rather to someone that he believes culturally understands the nuances of his own life. This is someone that will listen and consider, he feels. Here in these letters he comes the closest to telling his story as he sees it… not quite. Even here he lies a little. Not ever really coming clean. Always slightly guarded, but it is with NDUGU that he shares the most. There’s something crazed and sad and real about these letters to NDUGU. Schmidt is a bit like Kevin McCarthy running down that black & white highway proclaiming that “They” are here already, as if anyone really cared about “They.”
Here, he admits how he truly feels about his ‘dear’ wife. He’s tired of her, those endearing quirks she used to have, are now the things of disdain. No longer is she the woman he thought he married, she’s been replaced by an old woman, doing old woman things and not at all the dream of the woman he had once loved. This first letter is a testament to just how tired, Schmidt is about Schmidt. How his life has become this endless cycle of meaningless activities. He cherishes the idea of his daughter, but as we learn, this is more of an ideal than a reality. She’s precious in the way that we all love our families and children, but he doesn’t really know her. Watch that introductory series of flashes to his Jeannie. Helen’s hands washing her, eyes from an auditorium watching her play in Band, a view from a car of her fiancé. These are not intimate moments, they are really attended moments where, He’s The Dad.
When Warren steps out to mail his first letter and check to NDUGU he gets himself a BLIZZARD at Dairy Queen, forbidden pleasure. As he left the house his “dear wife” Helen is on her hands and knees vacuuming some powder off the floor and tells him to not “dillydally.” When he returns, well… His wife is dead. Suddenly he’s on his own.
All that I’ve written is the set-up for the film. The opening 30 minutes or so. This tells you a bit about Schmidt. In those opening 30 minutes he learns that his last years on Earth will most likely be spent alone. In the remaining time, we find him trying to change things for his daughter. To keep her from making the type of mistake that he and his wife had made. To keep her options open. She doesn’t want him around. You can’t really help those that are not open to listening. Schmidt ultimately learns about himself that he is, in all ways a failure in life. There is nothing that he has a passion for. Nobody truly loves him or cares about him. Ultimately the work he dedicated his life to was tossed the moment he left the building.
About Schmidt… He’s more or less a character of indecisive hesitancy. Locked off from the world, hidden behind a well mannered and gentlemanly set of behaviors. He can do the right thing, well at least what others perceive as the right thing. He can stand up and make everyone a bit happier for having spoken… except himself.
Nicholson proves in this film why he is the very best actor of his generation. This is a brave, fearless role. Anytime you think you’re about to see JACK NICHOLSON barrel onto the screen, he crawls back into that RV of his, and heads out. He’s a man at that point in his life where he realizes that he will indeed die alone. That ultimately there is no one there for him. The comforts have past him. The days of dating gone. He wouldn’t know how to start over. His life is simply ebbing away without any real meaning or purpose.
Is that how we leave him? See the film. There is more to it than that, but not much more. The film is fiercely funny, sad and morose. The film will ask you the question about dying alone and having accomplished nothing with your life. It’ll make you laugh at the questions, through the tears that is.
Ultimately we all think about dying alone. We all also dream of dying in that wonderful concept of the loving extended family gathered around us as we gently go, watching people genuinely affected by our passing.
Have any of us really touched and made peoples’ lives the better for our existing to touch them?
Nicholson is as good as he’s ever been in his career. He’s completely realized this character, a restrained and paced man, so you know this isn’t Jack playing the arched eyebrows and wolfish grin. He isn’t sticking to the Jack-crutches, this is Jack playing a role that very much, 3 years ago would have been played by Jack Lemmon. And that would have been a shame. I love Jack Lemmon, but watching Nicholson play with this role, that’s something that I haven’t seen before, and I’m quite taken with it.
Jack deserves any awards he may be nominated for or suggested for with this performance. It really is quite spectacular in its own quiet sort of way.
While we learn that Schmidt is very much alone, this film also illustrates why he’s alone with a cornucopia of characters that would drive anyone to a life of solitude.
Warren’s precious Jeannie – well she’s a mother’s daughter, and I got the impression that Jeannie heard hours upon hours of her mother griping and being miserable about Warren. She’s bitter that he never really took an interest in her life. Honestly, she isn’t a very bright bulb. She’s quite doughty and common. The family she is marrying into reminds instantly of the in-laws that have their own pleasantly argumentative dependably loathsome behaviors and delusions. All quite real. Each of these characters ring true and I can actually point out each one of them in my own life. It really is quite frightening.
Now you might be wondering why I see this as a companion piece for THE APARTMENT, after all that film ended on such an up note, and this is such a sad sad tale of disappointment and unrealized dreams.
Well, maybe because right now in my life I don’t believe in happy endings, but in happy times. Because I don’t believe my best intentions are enough, and the impact of my actions may be out of my control. Because there’s that part of me that knows I’ll die alone and that I seriously wonder if anything in this life will ever mean as much to me as a few months I had this year. I know that doesn’t sound like the typically chipper Harry, but hell, we all have our moments of self-flagellating and while things are not all bleak and dark for me at the moment, and I am a romantic that wants to believe in happily ever after, I’m also a DR ZHIVAGO man. I see that film as being truer than the Disney and Happy Hollywood horseshit I see in the bell-ringing conclusion of most films. This film reminds a bit of films like ULEE’S GOLD and THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN. There’s a tiredness here. There is an exhaustion.
I love THE APARTMENT. It makes me happy, makes me believe in things working out, but when the movie is over and the lights go dark… I think ABOUT SCHMIDT.
There’s a real half-empty feel to this movie. A bit of a cure for all those radiant smiles and upbeats we see in movies. All stories don’t end happily, even our own. It’s nice to see movies that remind us about the bitter pill, that way we’re not afraid to swallow it and move on should the time arrive.
Alexander Payne is another of those filmmakers that I’m just delighted to see evolve today. Right now I find the world around me profoundly sad and the outlook bleak, but I laugh at it all like Crom in his mountain. And Payne does as well. He’s focused on details and faces that are often left on the cutting room floors of the average filmmaker, and Alexander is anything, but average. He’s an exceptional filmmaker with the ability to make me howl in laughter and then without warning… he’ll shiv ya and twist, then make jest at your seeping wound. Payne is so unflinchingly sure of his hand with this film that he’ll just throw something at you that you never see coming. It'll could make you laugh or cry or nod your head in agreement. He's made a film with a lot of truth to it. And Nicholson reminds us all why he's Jack!
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Just hearing bits and pieces of it sparked my interest, but Harry's review fanned it all into flame. When, where, and how much?
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I can't wait for this film. Alexander Payne adapted a funny novel into one of my very favorite (if not best) films of 1999. Since then, his last credited work was for Jurassic Park III...hmm. Finally he has another real film coming out. If anyone is interested, his commentary track on Election was very casual and intelligent. You'd be surprised how many visual themes he tried to express in the film but ended up, as he admits, failing. The guy seems very fun to listen to. I hope he does some kind of Q&A for the film. About Jack Nicholson...I love it when Jack is Jack, but I also love when he goes for something like the Pledge. Something different. Hopefully, by the looks of this review of The Apartment, it will be. Just curious...does ANYONE not like The Apartment? I love it...but there is ALWAYS someone who hates even classics like that.
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you change ur style on reviewing? no more personal views and the pre movie experience? now right to the deeper themes and ebert-esque language and thoughts
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I wish Payne had used that title - he considered it. The title alone might get some people in the theaters that might not otherwise go, sad to say. As it is, nobody'll see this, but I'll be first in line. Election is an unsung masterwork. By the way, this is Harry's best written review ever. 100% obnoxious-free.
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I personally can't wait for this film. It looks great and sounds like a real quirky slice of reality. The Apartment is one of my favorite films, and if this film, even if it's a downer, can be an extension to that masterpiece, I am SO there.
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Hey Harry, beautiful review! But what is it that is making you sick? Identity crisis? Unfullfilled desires? Or what? Why don't you share some more of your thougths with us and give us a clue what is bothering you? I always saw AICN (and especially your reviews) as an opportunity to share feelings about films (as well as about life) with you and other people... Please remember the fans of your site which are concerned what's going on inside you.
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Harry loves "The Apartment"? If you read his thoughts on the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, he says, "I've just never been a fan of this film. It just didn't work on me." Here is confirmation of that statement: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=1131
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I guess it is possible that he changed his mind about The Apartment but c'mon, who are we kidding? So what is the explanation Harry? Man you are so full of shit. This is another reason why Moriarty needs to usurp this site. Do you even know what you are writing or are you just trying to impress someone?
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When I wrote the piece on the AFI's 100 Top Films list, I hadn't seen THE APARTMENT since early High School, and the film didn't do anything for me back then. Since that time, I saw the film when I got it on DVD and fell in love with the movie. It's literally a difference between seeing a movie at age 14 and age 29. Your tastes change a lot in that period.
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Go away and read a different site then. Simple.
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So whatsisname didn't consider the Apartment one of the best movies of all time, in an article he wrote back in 1998. How many folks posting here even had a venue like this in 1998 until he set it up? I'll be happy to put up with Harry's changes of mind, as long as AICN continues. Some nits don't need picking.
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Nov 27, 2002 6:27:43 AM CST
Harry wrote: "And Nicholson reminds us all why he Jack!" And I r
by chuckrussel
'nuff said!
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Nov 27, 2002 8:41:10 AM CST
Sometimes I'm watching a movie, and Harry would be in that movie
by roach motel
Then I wonder, was that Harry? For example, the other day I was switching channels and they were showing Mask, the movie with Cher. All of a sudden, there was a scary-looking guy with red hair. I thought it might have been a young Harry.
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Nov 27, 2002 8:57:59 AM CST
Just when a think Moriarity's reviews are the only thing worth a
by edward rooney
I bet you two havent said a word to each other since the Feme Fatal reviews.
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so the whole movie is a downer? because life is a downer? reminds me of a scene in the seven samurai. after advising a young man to "train hard", the head of the seven samurai comments: "yes. train hard. be the best. become a lord. then one day you wake up an old man and all your friends have died." i don't know, harry. modern life is depressing. we're supposed to be in one of the best countries in the world to live in... so why does everything seem to be a crock of shit?
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This was a solid review, Harry. And don't let people like Mojo_JoJo get you down. I mean, all out of bananas and nothing to fill his asshole but a finger. A thumb, on Sundays. Can't wait to see this.
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This guy is not a looser with a waisted life. He is all of us. No matter if your life is full and complete or full of regrets, if you are lucky to live long enough to see the end coming, then how you lived doesn't matter. Death is the great equalizer. You won't draw any more comfort from your great moments than you will draw sorrow from your worst. Point being, that when life is near its completion you either believe in something more and have hope, or you don't and have despair. If we weren't so scared of death, we wouldn't need to pass judgement on this guys life.
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...This movie will suck, trust me. The script was horrifying, don't go near this one with a ten foot pole.
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I will see this. Sounds great. This and QUIET AMERICAN. Its true it seems like one of those Jack Lemmon middle-aged crisis man about to crack films (SAVE THE TIGER, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES etc).
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Nov 30, 2002 1:22:24 PM CST
Harry's right, even though it seems as if theres a Second Great
by neofromthematrix
Thats all that really matters in life, the little things, the happy times. Even though we'll all die soon, either homeless on the streets or in a nuclear holocaust, all that matters is that we have some fun NOW, so that we may have some fond memories at the moment of our imminent death. I think that I'm gonna go spend some quality time with my sweetheart. - There is no spoon.
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Harry's reviews suck. Period. And don't give me that "Go read another site, then!" crap. The only reason I'm here is because of the ability to Talk Back on these boards. The only reason ANYONE comes to this site is because of the ability to Talk Back on these boards, although Harry's probably too self-important to realize it.
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When you said "she's quite doughty and common", I think you meant "dowdy". "Doughty" is a word but it would connote valiance, not a quality that Hope Davis's plain Jane character possesses.
Learn some English. -
Thank you, Harry. Thank you for another self-indulgent, over-long, masterbatory review. Does anyone ever read his reviews anymore? I mean, the whole thing?
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Way to go Harry! Another hilarious review!!!
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Good review. Now I need to see both of these movies. It's something of a letdown when you realize that there is no such thing as happily ever after... only a string of moments, some of which are happy.. and most of which are bland. Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks. Ya gotta enjoy the diamonds, even if they are tiny... enjoy the key lime pie after the meal... that good song you haven't heard for years on the radio... that rare good movie or good book... those rare occasions on holidays where the family actually gets along and manages to have a real rockwell family get together.
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Who ever does these review needs to move to LA, so they can see the latest movies, I've already seen NARC, 25th HOUR, ADAPTATION, etc....Where are the reviews for these films???
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I'll be seeing this flick this weekend, it looks interesting. Like a lot of people I am grateful for the forum Harry gives people like me, butwhile I enjoyed the review, some of the sentiments revealed have me wondering, does anyone NOT think in groupthink anymore? I mean, if I read one more person who says basically--"Hey look, folks, life ain't like a Disney movie/Hollywood ending/Father Knows Best" like that's some kind of freakin' revelation, I'm gonna puke. Yes, Harry and all, this may be news to you, but anyone who was "hip" enough to read MAD magazine, watch the Simpsons, or unfortunate enough to have a dog or beloved relative die when they were a kid knows this already. If you're just realizing this after viewing Schmidt, well, you're dense. (I don't really think you just realized this; just give the rest of us credit for being a little aware of reality.)*********I didn't agree with Pauline Kael a lot, but I was right with her when she was nailing Billy Wilder. He's probably the overrated good director of all time. Stalag, Sunset Blvd., Double I and others are just terrific movies, but Jesus did this guy go on and on about how awful OTHER people were. Lots of speechifying about how deluded OTHER people were, lots of angry pissing on OTHER people, very Hollywood liberal, sitting back and laughing at those silly little people who make mistakes while groping their way through life. As Kael said, real morality is having the highest standards of morality for yourself, and having pity for other people who couldn't achieve the highest standards.*********Jack Lemmon is another of the supposed greats I couldn't stand. Funny in The Odd Couple, terrific in Glengarry and a few other places, but Jesus, he exemplifies the wussbag-as-ordinary-man bullshit Hollywood would have us believe is the average American white male. Christ, Lemmon's characters were so damned weak--and this was seen as heroic. I love flawed characters who perhaps fail, who struggle and either win or lose, but Lemmon was the ideal male for a ball-less nation--I don't mean a nation of macho assholes, but of people who wanted things handed to them, who wanted men to feeeeeeeeel.************I'm not dumping on you, Harry, your site's given me lots of pleasure, so don't take all this personally, because your review made me really want to see Schmidt. But this kneejerk bending down to honor everything created by Wilder (One, Two, Three, anybody? Fedora?) and Lemmon needed an opposing view.*********Yes, I know everyone here will disagree with me.
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Harry, I'm glad you liked the movie. I enjoyed it very much. Can I just say, though, that you are one of the worst writers ever? God, take some remedial english at your local adult learning centre.
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At last a positive review without reference to hot dogs with "special mustard," or any other euphemisms for seminal fluid.
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I like Jack Nicholson. Don't always like his films, but he's something regardless. I may be one of few people that thinks "The Shining" was a bowl turd and then some. Jack didn't do...Jack (Torrance), but my special contempt is for Kubrick casting Shelly Duval. God, what a terrible choice! Even worse performance. However, this about current times. Saw "The Pledge" this weekend on DVD. Jesus, this is NOT a "happy movie at the end" either. Two things struck me hard; Jack is awesome and Sean Penn is a pretty fine director. "Schmidt" sounds similar to "The Pledge" in that Jack is playing a difficult, flawed character going through difficult times. Hmmmm, since I was shopping for the big "retirement RV" last week, I should catch this flick for pointers. :0)
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Jan 09, 2003 5:10:55 PM CST
Why do they wait til January to release these? Damn Oscar race!
by rivetbadtz
Brillaint film, I'd put this in with other portraits of middle Americana grain field films like Koyaanisqatsi, The Straight Story, True Stories, and My Own Private Idaho. Btw, that Kathy Bates hot top scene? I havent cringed that bad since I saw Julein Donkey Boy and Freddy Got Fingered!
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Check out El Bicho's review of Schmidt at maskedmoviesnobs.com
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I left a trail of krispy kremes from Harry's computer desk to the "English as a second language" learning centre. But he ate the teacher.
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... what about the rest of the cast? Dermot Mulroney (is that the right guy? I gotta check IMDB next time) was hilarious. The comment about seeing these people in our own lives... well yeah, you're right. But more details, man! This movie left a few of the folks I saw it with feeling a bit off, + I reckon everyone's at home now, reflecting or hugging family members or something powerful like that. The thing that frustrates me about this movie is that the difference we make in people's lives is irrelevant. The death of the wife makes that point so perfectly. She sure as shit didn't know that he cared so much, that she'd made a difference in his life. But she did. I think most people do. Fantastic review, Harry, but (as usual) I'm glad I saw the film first. Still, it's fun to come back here + see what people had to say. Out.
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