Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I ran a couple of reviews of ABOUT SCHMIDT together last week. One was very negative, written with the sole intent of calling the film names, and the other was pretty much a rave. New Line saw the reviews and called to invite me to see the film for myself. They sounded a little freaked by the negative review, but I told them I ran it because the only negative reviews I’ve read seem to be by people who have really freakin’ terrible taste in film. People who are sensation junkies without attention span. The same kind of people who dismiss JACKIE BROWN because it didn’t deliver the same hypodermic-to-the-heart as PULP FICTION. I ran that review as an example of the kind of person who probably isn’t game for the latest offering from the same creative team as ELECTION and CITIZEN RUTH.
Personally, I love ELECTION. I think it’s another one of ‘99’s quiet masterpieces. Alexander Payne is definitely a member of the Class of ’99, along with David Fincher and Brad Bird and Spike Jonze and David O. Russell, guys who may or may not have made other films, but who made defining films in ’99, films that helped make it the single best year in recent memory. For many of the people on that list, including Jonze, whose ADAPTATION I reviewed Friday, this is the first year where they’ve got new work out there, where they either live up to their promise or buckle under the pressure. ELECTION is a great little character piece, and the performances by Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon were bliss, among their very best. Even Chris Klein seemed promising with Payne directing him. It represented a real step forward after CITIZEN RUTH, which is a very good satire, but which plays a bit broad for us to ever really invest in the characters. It’s a film filled with types instead of people, but it works because Payne and Jim Taylor, his writing partner, have a wicked sense of satire that plays dark, but never so dark that it becomes uncomfortable. These guys have too much restraint and class to ever deliver a YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS style plunge into extremism. Even when they shock (as in the moment in ELECTION where a teacher takes glee in saying, “Her pussy was so wet”), they also find the belly laugh and the truth.
And now, with ABOUT SCHMIDT, Payne and Taylor have taken another giant step forward with a mature, adult piece of work that takes a rare and unvarnished look at life as it is, a film that managed to ably defy any attempt to label it either comedy or drama. This is a small story about muted epiphanies, but it’s in those tiny details that Payne and Taylor find painful truth and quiet power.
I’ve lived outside of major cities more of my life than I’ve lived in major cities. I’ve lived in Tennessee, Texas, and Florida at various times. I usually hate the way rural life, or even average American suburban life, is portrayed in films, especially once you get movie stars mixed up in things. No matter how skillfully made ERIN BROKOVICH was, did you ever for even a second lose sight of the fact that you were watching Julia Roberts done up “trashy”? Isn’t that part of what sold the film? There’s almost always this smarmy sense of playing “dress-up,” a sort of joy in slumming it. It’s more the fault of the directors than the actors, since it’s their job to create a space where they can provoke some kind of real or honest reaction out of their cast. And there used to be directors who were really good at this. Look at the way Spielberg portrayed the near-nuclear chaos of family life in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS or E.T., or the obvious affection towards pretty much everyone in Jonathan Demme’s HANDLE WITH CARE, or the world in which Scorsese set ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE. Alexander Payne has said, “American life is atypical in Los Angeles and New York. There’s a huge continent in between.” He’s right, of course, and he’s rapidly claiming Omaha as his own particular cinematic turf. By focusing on such a specific mileau, he’s getting better and better at capturing the particular world with the help of his regular collaborators like director of photography James Glennon or production designer Jane Ann Stewart or Wendy Chuck, whose costume design borders on mad genius. This is the sort of cutting observational satire practiced by guys like Hal Ashby or Robert Altman in his best moments. Oe of the reasons so many of those great films from the ‘70s still resonate is because they said timeless things, universal things that still seem fresh and potent today. I’m willing to bet that ABOUT SCHMIDT is going to endure in the same way, an important landmark in what is sure to be a long and significant career.
Actually, it’s also a landmark in a career that is already long and significant. It’s strange seeing Jack Nicholson do something that redefines him yet again at this point in his career. None of his peers seem capable of this kind of courage or range. Dustin Hoffman was solid in MOONLIGHT MILE earlier this year, but it’s been a long time since he challenged himself or our expectations. It looks like Warren Beatty was going to shake things up when he flirted with starring in KILL BILL, but he backed out. De Niro seems to have become hopelessly addicted to self-parody. Yes... Bob... you’re funny. We all get it now. And Pacino, even in his best work these days, is a collection of mannerisms, and the fun of being a fan of his work is seeing him pull out his greatest hits. “Hooo-ah!” indeed.
Only Nicholson seems to push himself with any real consistency. He was quite affecting in last year’s underseen THE PLEDGE, and this time out, he’s pushed himself someplace new. For the first time, Nicholson’s playing a character whose fire has completely and finally gone out. The easy Hollywood version of this film would be about a guy who retires and then suffers a few setbacks, only to discover a new love of life as a hellraising rebel in a Winnebago, a fable to make Baby Boomers feel better about the encroach of age. This isn’t that easy version, though. This isn’t a story told to placate or to soothe. This is unflinching, an uninvited x-ray, and it may leave many viewers feeling flayed.
Warren Schmidt (Nicholson) has been an insurance adjuster his entire adult life. He’s been married to the same woman, Helen (June Squibb), the entire time. He’s raised a daughter, Jeannie (Hope Davis), and now she’s getting ready for her wedding to Randall Hertzel (Dermot Mulroney). It’s a time of change for the Schmidts. You see... Warren is retiring. That’s the first thing we see. Nicholson at his desk, watching the clock count down the last seconds of his professional life, waiting for 5:00 exactly. He’s packed, ready to go. The first thing that struck me about him, physically, was his hair, a remarkable architectural construction consisting of an interwoven comb over with a flip... really. Beyond words. It’s majestic. 5:00 comes, Warren stands up and leaves, and that’s it. It’s over. No more job. No more 9 to 5. His life is his own again.
Problem is, Warren doesn’t know what to do with it. He doesn’t have the slightest notion. Sure, Helen’s got a few ideas. She has pushed Warren to buy a giant Winnebago, but he doesn’t seem particularly interested in even sitting in it, much less taking trips in it. He watches TV without seeing anything. He just absorbs the noise dipassionately until something breaks through that fog, an ad, a commercial for Childreach, one of those programs where you “adopt” a child “for as little as 72 cents a day!” Warren sits there, watching this commercial, and finally, at some level, something in him stirs. He calls away. He gets the information packet. He fills it out, and he officially becomes a foster parent to Ndugu, a little African boy. Warren takes this opportunity to write letters to Ndugu, and it is these letters which becomes the framework for the picture. It’s a simple device, but quite beautiful when it pays off. And it allows Warren to give voice to all those thoughts that he could never say to the people around him because he’s forgotten how. Somehow, he opens up for this boy that he sees only in a single photograph, and for those moments when he’s writing his letters, Warren actually sees the world around him.
Tragedy strikes, and Warren’s world falls apart, but even so, it’s like it doesn’t really penetrate. He just rolls on, stunned, but still not quite feeling. He takes his Winnebago to visit Jeannie in the last few days before her wedding, and he meets Randall’s mother Roberta (Kathy Bates), her ex-husband Larry (Howard Hesseman), and their other son Duncan (Mark Venhuizen), who seems as blissfully dense as Mike Shank from AMERICAN MOVIE. Everything in Warren recoils from this immersion in the world that his daughter has chosen, and it’s during this stretch of the film that Payne and Taylor come the closest to cutting loose. Kathy Bates plays it big, and if we hadn’t all met people exactly like Roberta, it would seem impossible. She’s open to the point of being offensive, and her nude scene (yes, you read that right) is one of this year’s most jaw-dropping images. If she wins an Oscar for her work here, they should pin it to her chest like a medal for courage. Hesseman plays beautifully off of her, and he’s as squashed and as frustrated as Warren in his own way. He doesn’t have a lot of time, but he makes the most of it, as do Harry Groener and Connie Ray as the Rusks, fellow Winnebago enthusiasts who encounter Warren in a trailer campground one night.
The film doesn’t build to anything like a conventional ending. There’s a moment, a wedding toast given by Warren, that is a remarkable act of love, all things considered. It’s not the best-written speech of all time. It’s not an opportunity for one of those cloying Hollywood slow claps. It’s an awkward, vaguely rambling wedding toast, riddled with cliché. The reason it’s so exceptional is because of how Warren really feels. He realizes that the wedding isn’t about him. The toast isn’t about him. It’s not his day, and it’s not important if he’s happy or not. He gives Jeannie a memory she’ll always cherish, no matter what the truth is, no matter what he feels, and it’s probably the strongest thing Warren does in the whole movie. As soon as he does it, he collapses back in on himself and retreats to his own home again, back to retirement in Omaha. One last letter to Ndugu gets sent, and it’s that last letter which will likely leave some people breathless. It’s a cold and lonely world as seen by Warren Schmidt, and death is guaranteed to be sooner, rather than later. It’s like being dunked in cold water, these final thoughts of Warren’s, bleak almost beyond bear, and just when you think Payne and Taylor have no hearts, they close the film with a scene that will break yours.
One of the reasons I hate it when people get wrapped up in races and contests at the end of the year is because it marginalizes accomplishments like this one. I don’t know if ABOUT SCHMIDT is enough of a gimmick or a sensation or a phenomenon to be a major contender for awards and such, and I don’t really care. I believe in these people. I believe in Warren Schmidt. For two hours, I was granted a rare window into the heart of another person, and I can’t imagine a more wonderful gift this Christmas season.
"Moriarty" out.
