Harry here... I'll never forget stumbling into that Chicago screening room and watching ELECTION that first time. I was there to see a stupid Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick teen comedy.... ugh.... and I walked out reeling from pure joy! I had liked CITIZEN RUTH, but nowhere near the level of passion that I had for ELECTION, if SCHMIDT is that next level up, wowzers. Now beware of spoilers, there's quite a bit, I'm gonna assume, because I read for a while then began to hear too much about the story and skipped to the wrap up paragraphs to make sure everything was ok.... BUT DAMN THIS SOUNDS GOOD!!!! Here ya go, another reason to be excited about 2002!
Hey, Harry
All of a sudden, the movie gods are smiling down. After suffering through ten months of really bad films, suddenly I am on a lucky streak.
First, it was Wes Anderson's loving, fetishistic, mature "The Royal Tenenbaums," then Steven Soderbergh's ace, purely pleasureable "Ocean's Eleven" remake, then Cameron Crowe's very personal, very involving "Vanilla Sky," and then, last night, I get the extreme pleasure of watching Alexander Payne's new 2002 film unspool. What a treat.
I had no idea it was coming, I had been watching the guy's every move 'cause of "Election," and I went through the roof when I got the test screening passes: "The Adventures Of Warren Schmidt," starring the one and only Jack Nicholson. What a rare, rare treat. The film is as much a quantum leap over the grand "Election" as "Election" was over "Citizen Ruth." Payne can now be classed with Wes Anderson in the "new Preston Sturges" derby.
Nicholson, playing an old man for the first time in his career, is a recent retiree at the beginning of the film. He and his wife (a same age actress, something that will certainly be noted upon the film's eventual release) have just bought an enormous Winnebago. All should be swell. But Warren (Nicholson) has that empty feeling inside: he doesn't feel like his life has had any effect on the world. So, watching late night TV, he is seduced by an "adopt-a-starving-African-child" commercial, and begins a hilarious one-way correspondence with Ndugu, a six-year old black child. After stopping at a Dairy Queen (and that's another thing about Payne--these movies take place in the real world. They manage to look both cinematically great and hopelessly bland at the same time,) Warren returns home to find that his wife has dropped dead. Warren has no idea what to do with himself (to borrow from Bacharach/David), and soon starts meddling in the affairs of his daughter, played by Hope Davis. Soon to be married to a hilariously under-achieving Dermot Mulroney, Davis is oblivious to the fact that her father is against the wedding. And she rejects his offer to come to Denver a week before the wedding to "lend a hand". So Warren hops in his Winnebago and begins his "adventures," driving around the few surrounding states and observing.
This is the heart of the film, this adventure, and it's a lonely bit. Nicholson, having packed on a lot of weight for the picture, turns in an alarmingly ego-less performance. This is not one of those pictures where Jack starts as a reigned-in loser and transforms into JACK by the end of the story: This is a real person, living in the real world. I don't wanna give too much away, but I can truly promise that this picture will make critical and social waves, for the following reasons:
A) It's terrifically funny and moving
B) It's subject matter is one rarely touched on in Hollywood: The twenty or so years that an American retiree has AFTER he retires. How Payne could make such obervations from his youthful vantage point is beyond me.
C) It has a fantastic nude scene. By Kathy Bates. That's right, the fanboys will freak out and squirm, but what a scene: Bates plays Dermot Mulroney's free-spirited mother, out to seduce the visiting Nicholson. And, with Jack hopped up on Percodan and floating in the sauna (don't ask, just trust me that the comic goings-on are things of beauty, crafted by a true talent), Ms. Bates drops her robe and hops in. It's hilarious, it's wonderful. And if New Line cuts it out because of focus group pressure, they are spineless bastards and they don't deserve a cent of the money that "Lord Of The Rings" is gonna bring them.
I apologize if this is poorly written, I'm sort of in a rush. But if "The Adventures Of Warren Schmidt" is not one of the best pictures of 2002, I'll join Werner Herzog in the annals of hat digestion. AND DON'T CHANGE THAT DAMN TITLE! IT'S IRONIC! I GET IT! THIS IS A GREAT PICTURE! IT'S LIKE "THE GRADUATE" FOR RETIREES! HONESTLY! OSCAR FOR NICHOLSON! OSCAR FOR KATHY BATES! MARK MY WORDS! THIS IS A BIG ONE!
Thanks, folks
C.C. Baxter
