Labeled as a comedic drama, About Schmidt is more drama than any comedy. Scenes of Kathy Bates naked and Jack Nicholson complaining about having to sit to pee are laughable, but this movie tells a story deeper than any of that.
Warren Schmidt (Nicholson) is 67-years-old and has just retired from his job at an insurance company and finds himself bored and looking for something to do. On top of that he is floored by the sudden death of his wife to whom he has been married for 42 years.
With all that has happened he begins a pen-pal relationship with Ndugu Umbo, a six-year-old Tanzanian orphan whom he sponsors for $22 a month through an organization that advertises on TV.
Sorting through his life he decides to jump into his Winnebago and make for Denver, CO to see his daughter get married and hopefully find something meaningful to hold on to in his life along the way.
Throughout his journeys he details his adventures and shares his observations with Ndugu. He visits places of his past and begins to fill his letters with a lifetime of things unsaid.
Nicholson gives an Oscar-worthy performance that takes the drama of a life led by the 9 to 5, and shows what happens when that 9 to 5 stops and everything that you depend on in life to occupy your time is gone.
The supporting cast lends terrific weight to a powerful script that asks for all members of the cast to give their all.
Kathy Bates shocks the audience by showing off the body God gave her and Dermot Melroney mullets it up as the half-wit fiance of Warren’s daughter.
As Warren dictates his life to Ndugu in Tanzania moviegoers soon realize exactly what Warren Schmidt is going through and can laugh and cry as he lives the life of a man looking for something that he could have sworn was there.
