Poster of About Schmidt
"About Schmidt" has two points that have to be mentioned, the first point of view is the starring Jack Nicholson, he has a number of film works that audiences are familiar with, including Tim Bolton's version of "Batman" and "Flying Over the Madhouse", "Runaway Knight", "Chinatown", "Yihai Majestic", etc., in this movie, his performance is quite wonderful, not only won the Oscar nomination that year, but also won the Best Actor Award at the 60th Golden Globe Awards in 2003, and his performance is a major highlight of this movie The second point of view is the director Alexander Payne, whose series of films "A Glass of Wine Life", "Nebraska", "Descendants", "Elections" and other social issues are often light-weighted, full of a strong sense of humor, while at the same time expressing serious themes within the framework of comedy, "About Schmidt" is such a seemingly road comedy but contains many philosophies of life.
Alexander Payne's Life by a Glass of Wine
The film begins with empty shots of several lonely insurance company buildings, which is uncommon at the beginning of a general movie, and the male protagonist in the insurance building waiting for retirement is just as boring, rigid, gray, lifeless, and lonely as the building in these shots, and his identity as an insurance actuary implies that he is a calculating and even a little selfish person, when buying a coffin for his wife who died suddenly, he bought almost the cheapest coffin, and he even calculated that he could only live for 9 years after retirement...
The empty footage of the insurance building seems boring
Schmidt waiting to retire
After his wife's funeral, because no one to take care of him, his life is a mess, then he recalls the benefits of his wife, but when he suddenly finds that his wife's private love letters make him angry, and also find a friend who wrote love letters to his wife for many years, and his car suddenly broke for no reason at this time, he decided to leave everything in the family and drive a caravan to his daughter's house to attend his daughter's wedding, at this time, the movie became a road movie again. On the way to his daughter's house, he searched for the memories of his life: the place where he was born, the place where he studied, the local history museum, and on the way he also met a couple who also traveled in an RV, and slowly, he understood that he should forgive his cheating wife and his long-time friends who had worn green hats, and thus forgot that he had been very disgusted with the trinkets bought by his wife, and he also bought a lot of them; and he who was originally strongly opposed to his daughter's marriage finally said something beautiful at the wedding that was obviously against his heart...
Schmidt and his motorhome after retirement
The Death of Marla.........
Life is actually like this, when you are powerless to resist, life begins to betray you, and we will always be helpless to replace what we really want to say with a grand speech, and when everything is over, the sadness and loneliness on the way home alone is the most touching place in life. Life is like the waterbed promoted by the son-in-law of the male protagonist, which looks very beautiful, but it is impossible to sleep peacefully when you lie down.
It's actually hard to feel good looking at the waterbed
The director placed a lot of such suggestive props in the film, the luxury car that could not be started after the male protagonist retired for no reason, the vacuum cleaner that was still running at the end of his wife's life, the barbecue-flavored fries, the wife's makeup remover oil, etc. all have subtle implicit meanings, as for the Simple Painting drawn by the African child at the end of the film, it undoubtedly evokes the more complex emotions of the male protagonist.
The painting painted by the African child brought him to tears
One day, we will all grow old, we will also experience the helplessness and loss that Schmidt has experienced, and perhaps young people without life experience will not be able to understand what this movie tells, but if one day, when we are all old and helpless, we will also be like Schmidt, we will find that most of our lives have been so failed, unable to achieve their lofty ideals, unable to avoid their own loneliness, unable to forgive their wives' cheating, unable to prevent their daughters from failing marriages. But fortunately, the film is still a comedy after all, and the setbacks of life are like black humor in road movies, and we may not be as desperate as we think, and eventually we will smile and cry like Schmidt.
Jack Nicholson's acting skills are great
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