Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
New York was great. Amazing. Too fast. I’m jetlagged like you can’t believe and sick from the rain, but I had an amazing time. Thanks again to everyone I met there for proving that New Yorkers are great and friendly people, to a fault. I wish I’d had time to see this one while I was there. Here’s hoping I get to see it soon m’self...
The Warren Show
There are some actors who you¹re just willing to run with, even if you aren¹t sure that they¹re really acting. When Jack Nicholson steps out onto the opening night stage at the 40th New York Film Festival, with a flourish of bows and the kind of disarming grandeur that you don¹t mind so much, you know one thing: you are the audience of The Jack Show. The pomp of Opening Night evaporates in the shadow of Jack¹s swagger and self-proclaimed good looks. It could just as well be the opening of Leroy Rainey¹s 8th Annual Barn Dance, it¹s still The Jack Show. And we, the middle America Joes and Janes to his Rickie Lake, couldn¹t be more thrilled.
That¹s why I¹m not prepared to watch a film where I can¹t distinguish the main character from my father. I¹m not prepared to suffer the pangs of mortality, fear of loss, and guilt of separation every time the camera crawls across that "handsome man¹s" craggy face. If this is The Jack Show, Jack has walked out on stage in the character of my dad, or who he could be in 3 years, and he doesn¹t breakŠnot even onceŠfor usŠhis slack-jawed cineastes who expect nothing more than an American Toshiro Mifune waiting for his next blow-job and cigar.
But "About Schmidt" isn¹t The Jack Show, though he is the only person on screen for much of the running time, and he is the only person the movie asks you to love. And love him you do. "About Schmidt" is the story of Warren Schmidt: working man, husband, and father, who has systematically been retired from all of those positions. The film opens at the end of his last day of work and you quickly realize, as one of his friends makes the ubiquitous " a very rich man toast" at his retirement party, that the satisfaction of a job well done and a life well lived that every man of Warren¹s generation is practically ensured, has somehow eluded him. His position at the insurance company is immediately filled, his work quickly forgotten. His wife has fully embraced the mundane enthusiasm of the newly elderly, leaving him to internally grunt and grouse at every move she makes. And his daughter, Jeanie, is as distant as any daughter who always identified more with her mother. You see Warren trying to go through the motions of satisfaction: the firm smile and handshake for his friend at the retirement party, the dutiful breakfast with his wife in their new RV "to see what it will be like," his tortured grip on the idea that his daughter "will always be my little girl." But Warren is never convinced. His retirement with all the trimmings has been served cold, the wishbone already broken in someone else¹s favor, someone who probably never even existed.
What director Alexander Payne does not do with "About Schmidt" is as important as what he does do: Warren doesn¹t go crazy, he doesn¹t shack up with someone half his age, he doesn¹t revive his little girl¹s love, and he doesn¹t realize that his life really was very meaningful. However, he does go on a journey and he does feel touched by grace and he is humbled by the human ability to recognize sorrow in others and identify with it, no matter how different from one¹s own.
"About Schmidt" is a beautifully specific movie. From the Omaha setting to Warren¹s never quite right comb-over to the sandwich Jeanie makes for her dad before her plane back to Denver. Every gesture and glance has artless meaning, as real and telling as they are in life. When Warren struggles between saying what he has to say and saying what he needs to, you feel the words wrenching inside him. In fully realizing his characters and space, Payne has made a movie that is thoroughly, achingly open. The film has a hilarious understanding of itself, taping the "there are children starving in Africa" idea to Warren¹s back like a "Kick Me" sign, only leaving you to love his middle-class, oblivious white man¹s journey that much more. Warren is sad. He may not go hungry and he¹ll always have a roof over his head, but he¹s still sad, and you feel for him.
But back to the hijacked Jack Show. The triumph of "About Schmidt" is that you don¹t walk out of it thinking that the triumph of "About Schmidt" is Jack Nicholson, though it is. There was no Jack swagger, no slicking back of the hair (ok, he did it once, but COMPLETELY differently), no winning yet disturbing smile. The camera, trained on his eyes, showed sorrow, confusion and anger, not ulterior motives and lust. I almost cried at the sight of Jack¹s Warren falling asleep in front of the TV in his den. He was so purely a manifestation of my father that I felt the 1,000 miles distance between us all over again.
Everyone in the film fully inhabited their roles and to the filmmakers¹ credit, they never seemed like simple props for Jack¹s character. Hope Davis is both sympathetic and aggravating, as most daughters are I imagine. Dermot Mulroney gives warmth to a character that could have simply been an aloof schlub. (Fortunately, Mulroney remembered one important thing: stupid people don¹t know they¹re stupid.) Howard Hessman is wonderful as a beaten down man who just wants to say something poignant at a poignant time. And Kathy Bates is the most fearless, brilliant actress on the planet.
But Jack, God love him, Jack is the one that will make you call home and ask
your dad how he¹s doing. Maybe this time you¹ll listen. Even better, maybe
this time he¹ll actually say somethingŠif he¹s seen the movie, too.
Here's another one, this time from a certain debutante on a rampage:
Hey Harry and everybody. This is your favorite Upper West Side debutante, Edith Bouvier Beale Jr. who previously dropped notes on The Hours (perfection) and Red Dragon (poon).
Tonight I had the wonderment of seeing About Schmidt at the New York Film Festival. All I can say is that I was floored. Spectacular. I loved Election, but wasn't prepared for what Alexander Payne did with this one. Election was funny as fuck. Schmidt wears you down to a darkly comic depression, and then hits you with the kind of ending that has the real uplift so-called "feel good" movies just can't by. One of the year's best.
Warren Schmidt (Nicholson) is 66 and retiring. Various events send him on a road trip from Omaha to Phoenix in a winnebago to visit his daughter (Hope Davis) and she frantically prepares for her wedding to a white trashy loser (Dermot Mulroney). While on the way, he ponders his life and finds that he has nothing but pain and regret. He can't bare to see his daughter going down the same path, so he makes it his job to break up the wedding. While doing this, he stays with his future in-law (the amazing Kathy Bates). This all leads to one of the most emotional endings in years. I was sobbing like a proper cunt.
Jack and Batesy are getting Oscar nominations, and I'd say, if they don't win, it's a shit. Jack gives the performance of his life. And the screenplay (which, I understand, is VASTLY different from the book) is seamless. DON'T MISS THIS ONE.
Also, I caught The 25th Hour last night. It was really good, but Schmidt erased it from my mind completely.
Shake it in the rain,
EDIE :-)
Thanks, everyone. I can’t read anymore about this movie. It’s making me into a mental patient. I love the great work of Nicholson, and the idea that Alexander Payne has added another legend to the canon excites me beyond words...
"Moriarty" out.
