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About Schmidt [DVD] [2003]
 
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About Schmidt [DVD] [2003]

Jack Nicholson|Hope Davis , Alexander Payne    Suitable for 15 years and over   DVD
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
Price: £3.07 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Actors: Jack Nicholson|Hope Davis
  • Directors: Alexander Payne
  • Format: PAL
  • Language English
  • Subtitles: English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.77:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: Eiv
  • DVD Release Date: 11 Aug 2003
  • Run Time: 125 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00007KGC8
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,617 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

Reviews

DVD Description

Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson - As Good as it Gets, A Few Good Men) has arrived at several of life’s crossroads all at the same time. To begin with, he is retiring from a lifetime of service as an actuary for Woodmen of the World Insurance Company and he feels utterly adrift. Furthermore, his only daughter, Jeannie (Hope Davis - Arlington Road) is about to marry a no-hoper. And his wife, Helen (June Squibb - Meet Joe Black) dies suddenly after 42 years of marriage.

With no job, no wife and no family, Warren is desperate to find something meaningful in his thoroughly unimpressive life. He sets out on a journey of self-discovery, exploring his roots across Nebraska in the 35-foot motor home in which he had planned to drive around the country with his late wife. His ultimate destination is Denver, where he hopes to bridge the gulf between himself and his somewhat estranged daughter by arriving early to help with her wedding preparations. Unfortunately, he hates the groom-to-be, Randall (Dermot Mulrooney - My Best Friend’s Wedding), a profoundly mediocre, underachieving waterbed salesman. To make matters worse, Warren is appalled by the free-spirited nature and boorish behaviour of his soon-to-be in-laws (Kathy Bates - The Waterboy, Titanic and Howard Hesseman - Gridlock’d). Warren grows swiftly convinced that his new purpose in life is to stop his daughter’s marriage.

During this darkly comic and painful odyssey, Warren details his adventures and shares his observations with an unexpected new friend and confessor – Ndugu Umbo, a six-year-old Tanzanian orphan whom he sponsors for $22 a month through an organization that advertises on TV. From these long letters filled with a lifetime of things unsaid, Warren begins – perhaps for the first time – to glimpse himself and the live he has lived.

Special Features

English
Region 2

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Customer Reviews

44 Reviews
5 star:
 (16)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (5)
2 star:
 (8)
1 star:
 (6)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (44 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars About Schmidt, 12 July 2005
By 
Rich Milligan (Thatcham, Berkshire) - See all my reviews
This review is from: About Schmidt [DVD] [2003] (DVD)
You really do have to wonder about the skill of Hollywood's marketing people sometimes. Why oh why have they marketed "About Schmidt" as a comedy when it so plainly isn't? It's not really even a black comedy in the true sense. It's almost like they are so scared that if they present the film as the sensitive tale of old age and a journey of self-discovery in the twilight years then no-one will want to see the film, so hey it's much easier to slap "Comedy" on the posters and the DVD boxes and get the punters rolling in.

Right, now that that rants off, I can tell you what a genuinely entertaining and enjoyable film "About Schmidt" is.
Warren Schmidt is a 66 year old insurance executive on the verge of retirement. We meet him on his last day in the office, clock-watching as the final few seconds click round until he is finally free from the drab enclosed box that his office looks like. However the joy and freedom of retirement that most of us look forward to is actually something of dread for Mr Schmidt. Waking up on his first day without work, he realises that he is without purpose in his life, he has nothing to do, and no-one cares whether he does it or not. His wife of 42 years annoys him in so many ways, his only daughter lives miles away in another state and seldom visits or seems to want to visit, and the company he loyally served for so many years is getting on seemingly very well without him. Cast adrift and aimless he is even more at a loss when his wife suddenly dies, leaving a huge void in his normal existence. His one solace and chance of expression are the heartfelt letters he writes to his sponsored foster child he has adopted through a charity in Tanzania.

However all is not lost. The 35 foot Winnebago traveller he bought with the idea of journeying around America with his wife is put to use as Schmidt begins an extraordinary voyage of self-discovery and re-evaluation, culminating with his daughter's marriage to a dubious looking potential son-in-law.

What the film then presents are a series of poignant scenes as Schmidt gets to know himself on his long journey. Some of these scenes are tender, some even tear-jerking and yes some of them are distinctly amusing but all of them provide insights into the emptiness inside Schmidt.

Jack Nicholson once again puts in a terrific performance as Schmidt and was obviously well worthy of his Oscar nomination. For an actor normally associated with extravagate, almost over the top performances it was most interesting to see this great actor playing almost within himself. Fine supporting performances from Katy Bates (also nominated for an Oscar) June Squibb and Dermot Mulroney.

I wouldn't say the film is a total masterpiece, indeed some of the scenes on the road trip are quite bizarre and I'm not sure what they were meant to represent, the scene when Schmidt meets the other Winnebago travellers for example. Also the film can become almost cloying with its sentimentality and verges on depression at more than one point.

I'm not surprised so many other reviewers here slammed it for not being funny or for being too serious, as I say to decorate the box with quotes like "A Very Funny Movie" is misleading at the very least.
That said I would still recommend this movie to any fan of poignant, thoughtful and intelligent films. Wait for the final scene and make sure you have a hankie ready!

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing Film, Great Perfomance!!, 15 Jan 2009
By 
Mr. Barry A. Segal (Ramsgate, Kent, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: About Schmidt [DVD] [2003] (DVD)
I am a secondary schoolteacher and for the past couple of years have used this film in the classroom to explore themes and get 14 year olds used to analytical thinking and writing. It is surprising that a film with adult themes can grip and interest this audience but it does.

One of the reasons it does is because of the absolute brilliance of Jack Nicholson's performance. He is totally convincing and utterly believable as the man who has felt he has lived a life of self sacrifice and served others when he has actually neglected them and himself and left himself with nothing at the end of his working life. His epiphany at the end of the film is a magnificent piece of film direction. We know exactly what his tears mean and we are with him 100%. We feel the hope and wonder that he must feel at being on the verge of the amazing discovery that his life can be so completely different than it has ever been before, even though he is nearly at the end of it; proving that:

It is never too late to change,
And it is never impossible to do so.

A wonderful film that has the possibility of truly changing lives.

My heartfelt thanks to the writer, the director, and Jack Nicholson for a truly outstanding performance, probably the best of his career.

Barry.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars All work and no play presages a bleak retirement, 12 Feb 2006
By 
Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   
The first scene in ABOUT SCHMIDT was, for me, the most powerful. Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson), on his very last day of a lifetime pushing paper for the Woodman Insurance Co., sits in his painfully barren office in an Omaha high rise watching the second hand of the wall clock tick down to 5:00 PM, at which time it will be quitting time - forever. Warren is retiring. As he walks out of his space for the final time, he looks back through the open door, hesitates, and then clicks off the light. His sense of loss and bewilderment is almost palpable.

In a culture where who you are is generally the answer to the question "What do you do?", Schmidt is suddenly nobody. He has no hobbies, pets, or outside interests. Only a wife of 42 years, Helen (June Squibb), with whom he feels only a fading connection, and one good male pal, with whom he has an apocalyptic falling out. An example of Warren's biggest thrill of an empty day is a sundae at the local Dairy Queen. Sure, he's recently purchased, at Helen's urging, a 35-foot Winnebago in which they'll tour the country. She's enthused; he's not. But it shortly becomes a mute point as Helen abruptly dies soon into the film. At the funeral, Warren is joined by his semi-estranged daughter Jeannie (Hope Davis) and her fiance Randall Hertzel (Dermot Mulroney), both over from Denver for the burial. Once they've returned to Colorado, Schmidt's appearance and lifestyle deteriorates. Then he decides to set out in the Winnebago for Denver, ostensibly to attend his daughter's nuptials, but also with the hope of talking her out of marrying the "numbskull".

Jack Nicholson turns in perhaps one of his best roles playing a man desperately seeking meaning and stimulation in a barren existence, certainly at 180 degree from the actor's own life. And he stumbles across more stimulation than he wants with Roberta Hertzel (Kathy Bates), the divorced and unabashedly irrepressible mother of Randall, in a hot tub scene that is tribute to the healthy self-image and self-assurance of Ms. Bates. Davis and Mulroney are both good as Hope and Randall respectively, the former who has Warren as a perpetual source of exasperation, and the latter who would cause clinical depression in any prospective father-in-law. And, lo and behold, there's Howard Hesseman as Larry, Randall's natural father. Remember him as Johnny "Fever" in the TV sitcom WKRP IN CINCINNATI?

Despite a depressing undertone, especially for one like myself onIy 12 years from retirement, I very much enjoyed ABOUT SCHMIDT except for the ending, which I thought too contrived, too pat, and not likely to buoy Warren up over the long haul. It is, however, good PR for those organizations that solicit one's sponsorship of a Third World child. Was there an agenda here?

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