Warren Schmidt: Jack Nicholson	Helen Schmidt: June Squibb
Jeanie Schmidt: Hope Davis	Roberta Hertzel: Kathy Bates
Randall Hertzel: Dermot Mulroney	Larry: Howard Hesseman
Director: Alexander Payne

30 Second Bottom Line: When a man is forced to retire from his forty-year career as a life insurance actuary in Omaha, his life becomes a void, full of loneliness and without direction. His wife dies and he takes a road trip to try to find some meaning in his life.

Story Line: Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) is the guest of honor at his modest retirement party in a worn out hotel meeting room in downtown Omaha. After a bland, rather impersonal speech by his boss, Warren escapes off to the bar for a drink by himself, clearly not happy to be retiring, and not feeling very connected to anyone in the room, including his pudgy sixty-five year old wife Helen (June Squibb).

His retirement becomes excruciatingly painful to watch. He sits in his easy chair watching television; he visits his replacement at the insurance company offering to help him adjust and is readily dismissed by this twenty-something upstart. Upon leaving the office building he sees his lifetime worth of files discarded on the back loading dock. He feels as worthless and discarded as these old files. Returning home,

In the meantime there is a wonderfully funny scene regarding his thoughts about his wife Helen. Who is this old, fat woman sleeping in bed with him? After a lifetime of marriage and devotion, everything she does annoys him, and her quirks are realistically and hysterically identified. This man has spent his life plodding along in his career, taking his wife for granted, not connecting with anyone emotionally - just going through the motions in every area of his life and not even realizing it.

Without warning, Warren comes home from an errand to discover Helen lying dead from a heart attack on the kitchen floor, vacuum still in hand. His grown daughter Jeanie (Hope Davis) and her fiancé, Randall (Dermot Mulroney) fly in from Denver for the services and we see how disconnected Warren is from his only child as well. Jeanie lives an unglamorous, ordinary life in Denver, and now in her early thirties seems to finally have found someone to marry her-Randall Hertzel, a hippie-type, waterbed salesman¾a businessman wanna-be.

Warren, irritated that Jeanie is making such a mediocre choice for a husband, pleads helplessness and beseeches her to stay and take care of him-ignoring the fact that she is soon to be married and has tons of planning to do. She ultimately reads him the riot act for having ignored his wife for their entire marriage and for buying the second cheapest coffin available for her deceased mother. She heads back to Denver with Randall, obviously very relieved to get away from her

Now, totally alone and domestically worthless (and resenting all that was Helen, who had insisted he urinate from a seated position) Warren's life and home deteriorate into a cesspool of dirty dishes and clutter. Finally, he decides to get into his never-been-used Winnebago and head off to Denver early for the wedding to spend some bonding time with Jeannie. When he calls her on the road to share this great news with her, she adamantly says, "No, Dad. You're not coming early." And he is left to drift through the Midwest trying to discover something, anything to give meaning to his life.

When he finally arrives in Denver a couple of days before the ceremony, his relationship with Jeanie becomes even further strained when he tries to convince her Randall is not good enough for her and that she shouldn't marry him. In the meantime, there are a number of scenes between him and his future son-in-law's mother, Roberta (Kathy Bates), which are so outstanding they are the central force of the movie.

After the wedding and his return to Omaha, the key question to me is, "Does Warren ever discover anything of significance?" Where is his "Ah hah!" moment? I must have blinked and missed it. The movie ends with Warren further communicating with his adopted child, Ndugu. That seems to be all the intimacy this man is meant to have, trading letters with a child he has never met who lives in Africa.

Tell Me More About It: For Jack Nicholson fans this is a must see movie. From his walk to his posture, to his empty expressions, this is a never-before seen Jack. He's old, uptight and totally not sexy-for clearly one of the sexiest men on earth, this is stellar acting.

The rest of the cast carries their own as well. Hope Davis, as Warren's dour daughter and Dermot Mulroney as her mediocre fiancé, are fantastic. Stealing the show though is Kathy Bates whose naked hot tub scene with Jack will go down in history as an all-time classic.

For those people who love movies and great acting, this is one to be cherished. For the general public though, out for a good Saturday night movie, this will be slow, somewhat boring, depressing and uninspiring.

Jack Nicholson: "As Good As It Gets"	Kathy Bates: "Titanic"
Hope Davis: "Hearts in Atlantis"	Howard Hesseman: "Teddy Bears' Picnic"
Dermot Mulroney: "Lovely & Amazing"	June Squibb: "Meet Joe Black"
Alexander Payne: "Election"