About Schmidt

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About Schmidt is a 2002 American film directed by Alexander Payne and starring Jack Nicholson as Warren Schmidt and Hope Davis as his daughter Jeannie. It is based on the 1996 novel of the same title by Louis Begley but all it shares with the book is the title and the hero's name. Everything else - Schmidt's profession, his location, the way his wife died, personality, etc. is changed. Important plot details in the book like his relationship with Carrie and his feelings about Jews and about selling his house do not appear in the movie.

The film begins with the retirement of Schmidt from his position as an actuary in an insurance company in Omaha, Nebraska. Schmidt finds it hard to adjust to his new life and feels useless. One evening, he is watching a television advertisement about a foster program for African children. He enters the sponsorship program and soon receives an information package with a photo of his foster child, a small Tanzanian boy named Ndugu, to whom he relates his life in self-centric letters. The main narrative of the film follows Schmidt as he goes on a road trip in order to attend the wedding of his daughter to a man and family he doesn't particularly like at all.

[edit] Plot

Schmidt narrates his life to Ndugu. The film opens with a death and a funeral, and closes with a wedding.

Schmidt retires from a lifetime's work in the Woodmen of the World insurance company, and is given an interchangeable retirement dinner at a nice steakhouse. He visits his young successor's office to offer help, but he is impatiently ushered back out the door, with his successor saying he needs no help. Schmidt leaves the building to see the contents and files of his office in the basement, set out for garbage collectors.

Schmidt describes his longtime alienation from his wife, who suddenly dies from a blood clot in her brain just after his retirement and their purchase of a Winnebago motor home. His friends and his only daughter Jeannie and her fiance Randall Hertzel arrive from Denver and briefly console him at a funeral ridden with arguments over money and funeral caskets. Jeannie intends to marry Randall (played by Dermot Mulroney), a union opposed by Schmidt, who feels Randall, a water bed salesman, is mediocre and unsuited to his daughter. Randall recommends the book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Harold Kushner to Schmidt and then tries to entice him into a pyramid scheme. After the couple returns to Denver, Colorado, Schmidt is again left alone.

Living alone, Schmidt stops washing, is shown sleeping and waking in front of the television, eating the entire contents of the kitchen, and goes outside with a coat over pajamas to load up on frozen foods in the supermarket. In a closet he discovers some hidden love letters disclosing his wife's long-ago affair with a mutual friend nearby, whom Schmidt angrily confronts. He decides to take a journey in his new Winnebago to see his daughter and convince her not to marry. When he phones her to tell her he is coming a few weeks earlier than planned, she insists that he only arrive shortly before the wedding.

Schmidt then decides to travel to places of his past, and finds his childhood home has been replaced by a tire shop; he visits his former college frat house, and a small museum. At a trailer campground, he is a dinner guest of a friendly and sympathetic couple there, but is ejected out after he makes a pass at the wife afterwards. Schmidt arrives in Denver shortly before his daughter's wedding, stays there with her fiance's mother, and wakes after a night in a water bed with severe pain and immobility in his back and neck. He meets her fiancé's family and tries to dissuade her from the marriage. She and her fiancé argue. The family's dinner conversation is ruined by ridicule and obscenity. Schmidt is incapacitated by sleeping on a waterbed and flees from the mother of the groom's pass in a hot tub. Schmidt attends the wedding and delivers a kind speech at the wedding dinner, hiding his disapproval. After the speech, he leaves to use the bathroom.

When he returns home to Omaha, his narrative to the orphan Ndugu questions what he has ever accomplished in his life. A pile of mail is waiting for him inside the empty house. Schmidt opens a surprise letter from Tanzania. It is written by a nun who cares for Ndugu, and she writes briefly but warmly that Ndugu is illiterate but enjoys Schmidt's letters and financial aid very much. With the financial aid, Ngudu was able to receive much needed medical care. The little boy's hand-drawn picture is enclosed, showing two smiling stick figures, one large and one small, holding hands in the blazing sun. Schmidt weeps with emotion and the film ends.

[edit] Classification and awards

The movie is rated R ("Restricted; Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent or Adult Guardian") in the United States for some profanity and some very brief nudity in a scene where Randall's sexually promiscuous mother Roberta (played by Kathy Bates, known for her lead role in Misery) tries to seduce Schmidt in a hot tub.

Jack Nicholson was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 2003 and Kathy Bates was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role but neither won. The film did receive the 2003 Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture, as well as the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama (Jack Nicholson, who stated "I'm a little surprised. I thought we made a comedy.").

[edit] Box office

• Opening weekend U.S. gross: $8,533,162
• Total U.S. box office gross: $65,010,106

[edit] See also

• Fictional actuaries

[edit] External links

• About Schmidt at the Internet Movie Database
• About Schmidt at Rotten Tomatoes
• About Schmidt at Box Office Mojoda:Rundt om Schmidt

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