About "About Schmidt"

I've been holding out against seeing this for some time - after all, was I really interested in seeing a movie about an uninteresting person? Turns out, that yes, indeed I was, interested and moved and totally blown away by Jack Nicholson's performance. This movie was so unusual for "Hollywood" and especially American drama, in focussing on the drama in the non-dramatic. A huge contrast to this was my reaction to "Six Feet Under," which was clever and artsy, but annoying in that everyone in it seemed to be behaving badly and making a virtue out of being unkind and over-emotional and angry much of the time. In this movie, everything was in the contrast between the way people behaved and what they felt. This movie was about the grace that exists in behaving well even if you don't really feel like it. The delicate play of human relationships, not hurting someone you love even if you think they are moving towards disaster. Jack Nicholson's performance was so restrained, so subtle, so internal - it was quite a revelation. It's no wonder that he wasn't rewarded by the Academy - they tend to go for the big gestures, and Nicholson's performance was rooted in the small. It was a lovely film; it counts as one of my ten best seen this year.