Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

About Schmidt Blu-ray Movie Review

What About Schmidt?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 31, 2015

Screen legend Jack Nicholson will always be best known for floridly expressive characters like the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman, Jack Torrance in The Shining, Col. Nathan Jessup in A Few Good Men, Randall Patrick McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or the Devil himself in The Witches of Eastwick . Nicholson has both the charisma and the acting chops to play such extreme personalities with unshakeable conviction. But Nicholson is also capable of working in a different register, one where everything turns inward and all of the explosive emoting for which he's best known seems to melt before your eyes. An early example was his depressive radio personality in The King of Marvin Gardens (reportedly one of the actor's favorite roles). Nicholson's reprise of his Chinatown detective J.J. Gittes in the flawed but fascinating The Two Jakes (which he also directed) has a quietly defeated quality that distinguishes the character from his earlier incarnation.

But the greatest (to date) of all Nicholson's interior performances was in Alexander Payne's About Schmidt, loosely adapted from a novel by Louis Begley by Payne and Jim Taylor (who would go on to win Oscars for writing Sideways). Payne and Taylor reinvented Begley's characters and reimagined his plot, but they retained the basic notion of an older man evaluating his life, not liking what he sees and being unsure what to do about it. Accepting the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama, Nicholson famously quipped, "I'm a little surprised. I thought we made a comedy!" One of About Schmidt's distinctive qualities, which is typical of Payne's work in general, is how it hovers unsteadily between pathos and ridicule. Depending on what one brings to the film, this tonal ambiguity may or may not be enjoyable, but there is no disputing Nicholson's achievement. Only a star of his magnitude could command the screen for two hours while playing someone so ineffectual.

At age 66, Warren Schmidt has retired after a lifetime career as an actuary at the Woodman of the World Life Insurance Company in Omaha, Nebraska. Being an actuary makes him an expert on death. Give him a man's age, race, profession, place of residence, marital status and medical history, and he can tell you with great probability how long that man will live. He can calculate his own number, but he probably hasn't thought about it until now, when he has to decide what to do with the time he has left.

Retirement weighs heavily on Schmidt. Like most people whose adult life has been regulated by the routine of a job, he finds himself at loose ends. He barely knows, and doesn't especially like, his wife of more than forty years, Helen (June Squibb). He has fond memories of their daughter, Jeannie (Hope Davis), as a child, but she now lives in Denver and is engaged to a waterbed salesman, Randall Hertzel (Dermot Mulroney), of whom Schmidt thoroughly disapproves. Jeannie is much closer to her mother than to Schmidt; father and daughter have nothing in common. Schmidt's best friend, Ray Nichols (Len Cariou), another Woodman employee who gives a sentimental farewell speech at Schmidt's retirement party, turns out to be a liar and a hypocrite. Wherever Schmidt turns, he feels isolated and alone.

It's this sense of isolation that prompts Schmidt to respond to a TV ad narrated by Angela Lansbury for a charity called Childreach, through which he becomes foster father to a six-year-old African orphan named Ndugu. Along with his monthly checks, Schmidt begins writing letters that the child probably won't be able to read, let alone understand, but they become Schmidt's effort to explain his life to someone, be it God, himself or just a nameless, faceless listener out there in the world. As Schmidt initially wanders about Omaha like a ghost, then embarks on a spontaneous road trip in the massive RV that his wife insisted they buy for his retirement, his letters to Ndugu serve as a narration, sometimes comic, sometimes serious, about who he is and what his life has been.

The first half of About Schmidt is the strongest, as Schmidt reviews his past, marveling (and tripping over) how much the world has changed while he wasn't looking and how much of life has passed him by. The film's tone changes, however, once the scene shifts to Denver for Jeannie's wedding and the crowd thickens with Schmidt's future in-laws, led by Randall's mother, Roberta Hertzel (Kathy Bates). Payne has always had a mean streak, which, in his best films (e.g., Sideways), is tempered by a recognition that even losers deserve compassion. In About Schmidt, though, he treats the Hertzel clan with condescension and contempt, and while they are often very funny, with a standout performance by Kathy Bates (like Nicholson, Oscar-nominated), they are all grotesques, whether it's Roberta talking about breast-feeding Randall until he was five, or the groom's father (and Roberta's second ex-husband), Larry (Howard Hessemann), trying to make a toast while Roberta yells him down, or Randall himself with his hideous mullet asking his new father-in-law to invest in a deal that he insists isn't a pyramid scheme. When Schmidt tells his daughter that the Hertzels aren't "up to snuff", it's hard to disagree. For once Schmidt seems to be seeing clearly, even if Jeannie doesn't want to hear him. Though Schmidt survives the wedding, and even chokes out a toast at the reception, nothing about the event contributes to his self-discovery.

Schmidt returns to Omaha, still writing to Ndugu. The film's ending is too ambiguous, especially after the parade of horrors surrounding the wedding, to provide any resolution. One possible interpretation (summarized at Wikipedia for those who want to check) is so sentimental that it's hard to square with the satiric tone that runs through the previous two hours (and drowns out everything else in the Denver sequences). A more cynical view would be consistent with Payne's pessimistic take on both Schmidt and those he encounters, but it cuts against Nicholson's subtle portrayal of Schmidt's gradual acceptance of his life. Everyone struggles with regret, and everyone has to accept not only their own mortality but also the life they've lived, with all its limitations. Whether you call it a comedy or a drama, Nicholson understood the story he was telling, and if Payne hadn't gotten so distracted by his mockery of the Hertzels, About Schmidt might have been a great film.

About Schmidt Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

About Schmidt was shot on film by the late James Glennon, who also shot Election for Payne and was the principal cinematographer for Deadwood, among other HBO credits. Made just before the advent of digital intermediates, the film was finished photochemically. There is enough telecine "wobble" in the image on Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray to suggest that an older transfer was used, because such instability is typically absent from newer transfers. The wobble isn't severe, but it is noticeable. About Schmidt was first released on DVD in 2003, and despite the prejudice against older transfers, image captures from that era could be acceptably detailed, if the source materials were good enough.

Wobble aside, the Blu-ray image is consistent with Payne's usual aesthetic, which eschews glamor or prettyness and favors natural light and realistic colors. Detail is good if not spectacular, though one cannot be certain whether that is a limitation in the transfer or a result of filtering to maintain Warner Home Video's target average bitrate (further discussed below). The detail is certainly good enough to bring out the unflattering closeups of Schmidt's grizzled face with his thinning hair frequently out of place (it's a vanity-free performance on Nicholson's part). June Squibb also looks worn, and Dermot Mulroney has rarely looked so unappealing. The interior of Kathy Bates's rundown post-hippie abode looks as random and unappealing as it must to someone of Schmidt's habitual neatness. The wedding with its formal attire and Schmidt's retirement party are among the best-looking scenes.

The color palette is generally dull. Omaha in particular looks gray and cold. About Schmidt is an autumnal film, and the palette only warms when Schmidt enters foreign turf like Roberta Hertzel's home or the trailer of a cheerful couple he meets on the road (played by Harry Groener and Connie Ray).

WHV continues their practice of aiming for a predetermined bitrate, regardless of the available space. About Schmidt has an average of 24.80 Mbps, despite the fact that only 31.7 GB of the BD-50 has been used. As in all these situations, there is no way to tell how much additional fine detail might have been retained if WHV had simply allowed the compressionist to use all of the space on the disc.

About Schmidt Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

About Schmidt's 5.1 sound mix, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, is a restrained affair that uses the surrounds for ambient crowd noises and environmental sounds of the road and various locations that Schmidt visits. The dialogue is clear, as is Schmidt's crucial voiceover. An essential comic component is the classical score by Rolfe Kent (Up in the Air and the theme for Dexter), which is often cheerfully at odds with the downbeat events on screen.

About Schmidt Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Woodmen Tower Sequences (480i): As explained in introductory text screens, these short films were created by the film's editorial crew to perfect their skills with the Avid editing system. They used extra footage from the location shoot used to open the film with establishing shots of Omaha's Woodmen Tower, where Schmidt spent his working life. The short films are intriguing as experiments in editing rhythms and techniques.
  
  Note that these films should be 1.85:1 but for some reason have been stretched to 2.35:1. Some players or displays may have settings that will allow playback at the correct aspect ratio.


• Introduction (1:01)
• Short Film #1 (2:24)
• Short Film #2 (1:34)
• Short Film #3 (2:58)
• Short Film #4 (1:52)
• Short Film #5 (3:51)



• Deleted Scenes (480i; 1.85:1, enhanced; 30:28): There are nine scenes, which can be selected separately or played as a group. They do not have separate titles, but each is introduced by a screen or two of text explaining the purpose of the scene and the reason for its deletion. Also, each is preceded and followed by a few seconds from the finished film to provide context. The most noteworthy is the last, which was written as a deliberate echo of the famous "no substitutions" ordering scene in Five Easy Pieces.



• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 1.85:1, enhanced; 2:28).

About Schmidt Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Many consider About Schmidt to be Alexander Payne's finest work. I prefer Sideways, The Descendants and, in particular, Payne's brilliant contribution to Paris, je t'aime, which is entitled "14e arrondissement". (Nebraska is currently sitting in my to-be-watched pile.) Much depends, I suspect, on how close or far away one feels from Schmidt's predicament, and how comfortable one feels laughing at the train wreck of a family into which his daughter is marrying. Either way, Nicholson's performance is a career high point that commands your attention. Warner's Blu-ray is an adequate presentation, though nothing special. Certainly worth considering at its current bargain price.