..

About Schmidt

Crissa-Jean Chappell
Review of About Schmidt
(R) *** ½

When Warren Schmidt hits the road, he cruises across the Midwest in a souped-up Winnebago Adventurer, the kind that resembles a boat on wheels. This is a far less glamorous voyage than the psychedelic trip Jack Nicholson took as a leather-clad motorcycle outlaw in Easy Rider, but they both involve a degree of soul-searching. As Schmidt, the recently retired bigwig at an Omaha investment company, the actor’s sure-footed self-assurance is masked with despair. Released from his monotonous job, he sits like a stone in his house, quiet and hard. He looks tired in a permanent way, with a baldness-concealing haircut and an expanding middle. He stares at his wife, snoring beside him in bed, and wonders, "Who is this old woman in my house?" She might ask the same question. Warren has spent his entire life calculating the life spans of other human beings. Before he dies, he wants to “make a difference” in the world, no matter how small it may seem.

Alexander Payne's funny, poignant film, based on the Louis Begley novel, is laced with references to the pioneering spirit of the old west. Schmidt zooms past acres of farmland as flat and one-colored as an envelope and stops at hokey tourist attractions to admire the malls, chain restaurants, and genuine indian arrowheads. Payne isn’t poking fun of his lumpy Midwestern everyman and his suburban existence. In many ways, Warren is a contemporary breed of the American hero, embarking on a psychic quest.

His existential crisis begins after his wife, Helen (June Squibb), falls dead on the carpet she was vacuuming. In an earlier scene, Warren’s voice-over described a secret loathing of this, gray, mushroom-shaped woman and her elderly quirks. Without Helen toasting his sandwiches, he finds himself helpless. Weeks pass and Warren, devoid of wife and job, decides to escape in the motor home that Helen had bought for their retirement. It’s a dream she never had the chance to enjoy. Now Warren is developing a desire to live before his time has past.

As Warren barrels down the highway, he composes letters to Ndugu, the six-year-old African orphan he chose to sponsor through a kitschy TV-advertised program called Childreach. Whether Ndugu reads or understands the contents of these cliché-ridden, eternally optimistic monologues is doubtful, but Warren has nobody in his own country to listen. The candid letters serve as the movie’s narration and filter Warren’s bottled-up frustrations. Chief among them is his darling daughter, Jeannie (Hope Davis), who resents his attempts at reconciliation. The gloomy, high-strung Jeannie is engaged to a hopeless schmuck (Dermot Mulroney as a mullet-sporting waterbed salesman). Her new family, a ragtag bunch of burnouts, is not up to Warren’s standards. Kathy Bates plays the lusty mother-in-law-to-be, Roberta, a New Age-spouting ex-hippie whose cheerful façade quickly morphs into anger. In one of the film’s funniest moments, she disrobes and plops beside the clueless Warren in a candlelit a hot tub.

Payne infuses his script with a writerly eye for detail and the absurdity of modern life—like the cheerful swing of the Winnebago’s foldout steps or the way Warren muses over a ridiculous list of ice-cream toppings in a Dairy Queen. In one scene, Warren revisits his childhood home, only to find a tire dealership on the lot. The film’s major conflict revolves around what we classify as “authentic” or “fake,” with American history in the backdrop. As seen in Payne’s previous films, About Schmidt relishes the tone of individual speech and the blatant insincerity behind our rituals, toasts, and vernacular. Nobody seems capable of communicating, although they do a lot of talking. At a mobile home camp, a stranger tells Warren, "I see inside of you a sad man.” Warren is astonished by her insight. Although he lived with his wife for decades, he wonders what she saw in him. At the end, Warren utters the sweetest lies for the sake of his daughter and we realize the depth of his underlying sadness. The final shot is the most eloquent, although it contains no words. When Warren finally sees that he has made a difference, there is nothing left to say.