Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
One of the things that has made Stephen King’s career so notable is the way he’s defined a fictional corner of Maine as his very own, his work serving as a sort of supernatural history of one particular corner of the world. Knowing the background of Derry and Castle Rock and the surrounding cities really informs each of the stories, allows King a sort of shorthand. Woody Allen has stakes a similar claim on New York, a New York that seems to have no minorities, no crime or poverty to speak of, in which well-off psuedo-intellectuals have complicated emotional issues. When you slip into one of Woody’s films, there’s an expectation of what world we’re about to visit. It’s fascinating to see someone claim a piece of landscape as their own as an artist, and when you see it happening, it can be exhilarating as you realize someone is defining their voice, making a run at greatness.
In theaters this Wednesday, you’ll see the names Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor III on the writing credits for JURASSIC PARK III. Don’t hold it against them. John Sayles frequently takes studio rewrite assignments because it buys him the freedom to do whatever he wants on smaller, independent films. If you’re trying to figure out who these two writers are, you have to consider their Omaha films, the pictures that Payne has directed, because that’s the world that seems to be so particularly theirs.
CITIZEN RUTH is a film I like a lot, and there was something ballsy about shooting such a blistering satire in Omaha, the heartland. ELECTION was one of the small surprises that made 1999 such a consistently exciting time to be watching films, a reminder of the power of great comedy writing and the command of Matthew Broderick. When I heard that they were going to be working with Jack Nicholson, I thought it was one of those perfect fits. No one is more witheringly sarcastic than Nicholson, more attuned to how to kill with a comment. I was expecting some sort of black and bilious masterwork.
ABOUT SCHMIDT is something else entirely, though. It’s something deeper and sadder than their prior work, and if Nicholson is at the peak of his considerable form in the film, it could be classic look at aging and compromise and failed expectations. The script is filled with the same cutting wit we’ve come to expect from their earlier work, but in pursuit of something else, a portrait of a man reaching a certain point in his life and realizing that the life he’s built isn’t one he wants or even recognizes anymore. WARREN SCHMIDT is 66, at the end of a lifetime spent in the service of Mutual of Omaha. The film opens with the last two minutes of his career, as he sits at a desk, waiting for the clock to make those last two trips around the dial. 5:00 comes, Warren stands and walks to the door, taking that one last look around, then walking off screen into a raised cheer of "For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow."
Watching Warren try and settle into his retired life is uncomfortable, to say the least. He’s miserable once cut free of his routine, and the first thing that strikes him about his new life is how much he doesn’t like his wife Helen. At least when he was working, he had excuses not to be around, but now that it’s just the two of them, everything she does drives him crazy. Everything she says annoys him. He’s not much better about dealing with his adult daughter Jeannie (Hope Davis), who is preparing for her marriage to a guy named Randall who Warren doesn’t like much.
Warren and Helen buy an RV Bounder, something Warren wants no part of. Helen is planning a trip, and it’s obvious she’s planning more than just this one trip. She’s got Warren’s whole retirement planned out. It’s equally obvious that Schmidt doesn’t want to do the things she has planned. It’s almost like he isn’t able to give voice to any of the thoughts he has or any of the growing fears he has. That is, he’s unable to voice them until he sees a television commercial. You know the one. Sally Struthers crying. African kids with distended bellies and flies buzzing around them, those hungry eyes pleading with the camera. Thirty-seven cents a day. Warren sees the commercial, and it’s like the first time he’s ever seen it. He calls for more information, and when an envelope arrives to introduce him to his new child, Warren reads it like a man in the desert would drink water. He memorizes the few details offered, then starts to write his first letter to Ngudu Umbu, from Tanzania. It’s like something inside Warren comes to life, because the letters he writes over the course of the film are what really distinguish his voice and the voice of the film. The letters are funny, but they’re more than that, too. Taylor and Payne use montage to make some devastating points about Schmidt’s life, and the reality of that life versus what he writes to Ngudu. It’s like he can’t quite lie, but can’t tell the truth, either, not even to himself. There’s also an almost willful ignorance in the letters. Warren seems to have no idea whatsoever what Ngudu’s life might be like.
As much as Warren feels like his life has already been turned upside down, he doesn’t come genuinely unglued until Helen dies unexpectedly. This leads to Warren discovering something about her that he never suspected, so when Jeannie and Randall come to stay with him briefly, he is shattered. He begs Jeannie to stay with him, to take care of him, and he doesn’t disguise the fact that he doesn’t like Randall at all. Jeannie puts up with it as long as she can, then goes back to Denver with Randall. Warren ends up on his own, alone, falling apart. Literally, he has nothing to keep him together. He doesn’t know how to make food for himself. He doesn’t know the first thing about cleaning his house. Within weeks, he’s let it decline to an alarming level.
Trying to snap out of oncoming depression, Warren decides to drive the RV to Denver to be with Jeannie as she prepares for the wedding. This is even after she begs him not to come, saying he’d just be in the way. The trip is revelatory, but not in the ways he expects. At one point, not quite sure why, he stops by his old college, his alma mater, and visits his old fraternity. This is a great sequence, smartly written, and it should be one of those Nicholson moments we treasure as we watch Warren, horrified by the clean new face of Greek life, attend a mixer where he gets roaring drunk and makes a complete ass of himself. He is depressed even further than before when he learns that his former roommate is now a multi-millionaire who has buildings on campus named after him, especially when they don’t even get Schmidt’s name right at dinner. He also has a painful, piercing encounter with another couple he meets at an RV campground one night, culminating in a truly horrible moment where he makes an awkward pass when left alone with the wife.
Eventually, demoralized and unsure where he fits in the world, Warren ends up at the home of ROBERTA HERTZEL (Kathy Bates), the mother of Randall. It’s a horrorshow, nothing like he expected or is used to, and after the first night’s dinner, he literally begs Jeannie to not marry Randall. And it’s not about happiness or love or anything else. It’s about Warren’s own fears and failures, and it’s a selfish, little moment. When his efforts to stop the marriage don’t work, Warren finds himself locked into a week of hellish preparation with Roberta practically stalking him. Even if this sounds dry, it’s not. Taylor and Payne are remarkable at shining a light into the souls of these characters, and they’ve crafted something special on the page here. I’ve heard the film won’t be ready for release this year, so mark this up as another of the films I’m counting on to make 2002 a banner year at the movies.
Towards the end of the film, Warren writes a final letter to Ngubu, and I don’t really consider it a spoiler to share it with you. Like I said... this isn’t a film about plot so much as character and reaction and emotion. There’s just something about the mix of absurdity and heartbreak in the letter that sums up what I love about this script:
"We’re all pretty small in the big scheme of things, and the most you can hope for is make some kind of difference. But what kind of a difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me? I have accomplished nothing. Even my trip to Denver was insignificant compared to the journeys others have taken, to the hardships they endured, the bravery they showed.
"When I was out in Denver I tried to tell Jeannie that I thought she was making a big mistake, but it just didn’t work. And now she’s married to that guy, that imbecile. I’m a coward. And I’m a failure. There’s no getting around it.
Relatively soon, I will die. Maybe in twenty years, maybe tomorrow. It doesn’t matter. Once I am dead, and everyone who ever knew me dies, too, it will be as thought I never existed. What difference has my life made to anyone. My life has added up to nothing. Hope things are fine with you. Warren Schmidt."
There’s still surprises in store for both Warren and the audience between that letter and the script’s end, and if they manage to nail the script’s final pages onscreen with the same power they did in the script, we are in for a work of real transcendence when ABOUT SCHMIDT is finally released, a beautiful summation of what has made Nicholson such an enduring icon and what makes Alexander Payne such a strong emerging voice as a director.
"Moriarty" out.
