h, the heartland. The flyover country known as America’s Midwest has provided comic and dramatic fodder for countless artists struggling to depict something essential about the American character. Such efforts produce masterpieces (the Coen Bros. Fargo) and wretchedness (the execrable Kirsten Dunst vehicle Drop Dead Gorgeous) in roughly equal measure. The key, it seems, is striking the right tone. The flat conservatism of the Midwest and its denizens is highly susceptible to artistic overreaction. With the right balance of satire and drama, one can make a film that is both funny and heartbreaking. With the wrong balance, such a film can descend into overwrought melodrama or shrill, vicious parody. Alexander Payne’s new film About Schmidt falls into the former category, thankfully. What other films can provide such a richly detailed character study, a perfectly assured mix of humor and pathos, and the jaw-dropping sight of a topless Kathy Bates soaking in a hot tub? None spring immediately to mind. Accordingly, About Schmidt may be the best movie of the year.


If the name Alexander Payne sounds familiar, it’s because he is the auteur behind the superb 1999 film Election, in which professional and sexual frustration sees Matthew Broderick’s Omaha, Nebraska school teacher fall apart while his irritatingly perky student (Reese Witherspoon) shoots to the top of the social stratosphere. That film’s blend of satire and textured humanism marked Payne as a director to watch (his first film, the abortion comedy Citizen Ruth, has been similarly praised by many critics but remains unseen by this reviewer). So the announcement that Payne’s next project would pair him with Jack Nicholson was certainly cause for guarded optimism. However, Nicholson has had a recent (read: ten years at minimum) tendency to indulge in scene-chewing histrionics that bear only a passing resemblance to actual “acting.” Would Nicholson be able to contain his outsized “Jack-ness” for a director of Payne’s subtlety?


The answer is an emphatic yes. Nicholson gives his most understated and powerful performance in years, and makes Warren Schmidt one of the more unforgettable central movie characters in recent memory. In fact, the expectations one brings to Jack Nicholson films actually helps emphasize the quiet power of About Schmidt.


The strength of the film’s story lies in its simplicity. Warren Schmidt is a 66-year old, recently retired Omaha insurance actuary, the kind of man who sees it as a major rebellion to go on an unauthorized trip to the local Dairy Queen. Warren’s home life is not a particularly lively one, with a marriage and daily existence defined solely by long routine. Warren’s wife Helen putters around the house, clipping coupons and helping their daughter Jeannie with wedding preparations. Then one day, Helen drops dead, to Warren’s astonishment. Utterly incapable of caring for himself around the house, Schmidt decides to pack up his massive Winnebago and go out on the road, while he still has time to experience life (he helpfully informs us in voiceover that his life expectancy as defined by actuarial tables is roughly nine years, and that as a result he needs to move fast).


Warren finds a purpose for himself in his daughter Jeannie’s wedding. Specifically, he wants to drive to Denver and break it up. Jeannie (Hope Davis) is on the verge of marrying Randall (Dermot Mulroney), a balding, mulleted dope of a waterbed salesman with a fondness for financial pyramid schemes. This man, Warren thinks, is not nearly good enough for his daughter. Complicating matters is Randall’s family, a motley collection of outsized and bizarre personalities headed by his mother Roberta (Kathy Bates). A large portion of the movie’s hilarity comes in scenes contrasting the stifled, conservative Warren with the explosive, profanity-laced shouting matches favored by his would-be inlaws. To top it off, Roberta’s nude hot tub excursion with a terrified Warren reveals Alexander Payne at his satirical, envelope-pushing best.


Some reviewers of this film may be tempted to either praise or castigate Payne for using satire to create what, at first glance, looks like an American grotesque in Warren Schmidt. This reading of the film misses the point. Just as he did in Election, Payne is using humor as an entry point to something more profound. About Schmidt is just as sadly moving as it is funny. Warren’s only truly human connection is with a six-year old Tanzanian child named Ndugu. Schmidt sponsors Ndugu through a worldwide children’s charity he sees on a TV commercial, and writes him long letters unburdening the inner depths of his soul. Payne initially uses this device in a humorous manner, as Warren absurdly lectures this poverty-stricken, non-English speaking child on what fraternity he should pledge when he goes to college. However, the letters to Ndugu reemerge at the end of the film, contributing to a climactic scene of astonishing emotional power.


Ndugu’s letters are perhaps the best representation of Payne’s intentions with About Schmidt. While funny on the surface, they reveal deeper emotional truths about Schmidt and his stilted inner life. Payne uses the traditionalism and value system of Schmidt and his Midwestern lifestyle first as humor, then as an exploration of one man’s existential crisis. About Schmidt is a film that truly lives up to its title—this is a character study first and foremost, about a man who is desperately struggling to find meaning in a life that has thus far been utterly wasted. That Payne can so effectively mix humor and pain to paint an indelible portrait of a lost soul is a tribute to his talent as a filmmaker. That Jack Nicholson can renounce his exaggerated acting style to turn in a memorable, beautifully modulated performance is a tribute to his apparent belief in the project. And at the risk of hyperbole, the fact that you will not want this movie to end is a tribute to its status as one of the great new American films.