About Schmidt

This one's an old post. Just feel like posting it again with minor revisions:


I love Jack Nicholson the same way I adore Robert De Niro. They are absolutely the most prolific actors of this time. No questions asked.

It was a thrill certainly that I finally got to see a film that has long been missing in my Nicholson collection. Jack was hilariously irritating in As Good as it Gets, charmingly vicious in The Departed and falsely mad in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Can anything be more interesting than those?

Well, there is one more Jack character that I so love. His portrayal of Warren Schmidt in About Schmidt is for me, his best so far. I was ready for a laugh trip given the first person perspective of the lead character and how his mind thought freely after his retirement from an insurance company in Omaha, Nebraska. Sure, there were funny moments especially when a very "bold" Kathie Bates flirts with Jack in a steaming tub (that was hilarious and I didn't see it coming, Christ's sake!) but I found myself crying towards the climax of the film. I hate myself for being a cry baby. Really, I am. Not too many films have made me weep though. This one did.

I somehow understand Warren's feelings. I felt really sorry for him that his job, his wife and even his daughter (who got married to a man Warren didn't think his daughter deserved) have all perished from his life and that ultimately in a time when he needed to get reassured that he led a good life, no one was there to convince him he did, not even himself. And so all the doubts came haunting him all throughout his journey. One simple yet meaningful drawing from a kid a thousand miles distant made him shed the tears he's been trying to keep for so long.

I guess all of us, at some point in our lives begin to question if we truly succeeded in life, if we made even a minute difference in this big old world we live in. I do get scared looking ahead myself, worrying that the same fate old Warren had trodden would happen to me.

But then, I believe...it's not what you've accomplished that matters in this life. It's how you accomplished all your triumphs and how well you handled your misfortunes and got up from them that truly matter in life. The question is not about what you've become for you could be the most famous actor or politician but it won't equate happiness and contentment. It is how you managed yourself as you earned your successes.

"I know we're all pretty small in the big scheme of things, and I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference, but what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me?"

As Warren asks himself these favorite lines of mine from the film, he does get answered instantly. That no matter how little a good deed is, it does make a difference.