`About Schmidt' should be required viewing for all budding directors, screenwriters and actors. I have never seen a film that manages to perfect the bittersweet nature of the human condition as well. I think `About Schmidt' is a masterpiece. It took me awhile to be comfortable enough to make this statement. Jack Nicholson said when accepting the Golden Globe for Best Actor In A Drama, `I don't know whether to be ashamed
I thought we were making a comedy'. Well, as the saying goes, `Life is but a jest.' I first saw `About Schmidt' in New York with a boisterous audience and I was right along with them in uncontrollable laughter. Nicholson's face is one in a million. He is the personification of a star. He can convey with one look, like Norma Desmond I guess, more than a paragraph of dialogue could ever do. He knows cameras and he is a master of film acting. Of course, Alexander Payne should be given tremendous praise as well.
I'm a pretty jaded person and unfortunately these days it takes a lot to make me laugh. In subsequent viewings I still bust a gut during so many moments in the film. The line between laughter and tears, happiness and madness has never been so fine as in this brilliant movie. `About Schmidt' is a deeply profound statement and is now one of my most endeared favorites.
I'm a pretty jaded person and unfortunately these days it takes a lot to make me laugh. In subsequent viewings I still bust a gut during so many moments in the film. The line between laughter and tears, happiness and madness has never been so fine as in this brilliant movie. `About Schmidt' is a deeply profound statement and is now one of my most endeared favorites.