ABOUT SCHMIDT
ABOUT SCHMIDT (A-3, R):
Just when you’re on the edge of movie despair, along comes a miracle
like About Schmidt. It’s mostly genial, at times uproarious, comic realism
about being vaguely disappointed about the way life has turned out. Then when
Warren Schmidt seems headed for despair, the film takes a step toward healing
and hope.
The hero is played by Jack Nicholson in one of the signature roles
of a huge career. He’s a mild-mannered Omaha insurance actuary, recently retired
and in the doldrums.
Schmidt quickly discovers he’s no longer welcome at work. His controlling
wife of 42 years dies. And he dislikes the ponytailed Denver waterbed salesman
their only child plans to marry.
We like Schmidt because he’s aware of the bad stuff happening to him but too
gentle to fight back in kind. He’s moved by late-night TV
ads about “adopting” a starving African orphan
and even writes letters to the boy. The voiceovers of those
letters, telling the distant child of Schmidt’s ups and
downs, provide the film’s ingenious narrative and emotional
spine.
As Warren Schmidt goes through life-changing rituals, everyone says
the nice and expected words, shakes hands, hugs or gives awkward speeches and
toasts. But deeper realities are unplumbed and unspoken.
Schmidt becomes infuriated as he discovers things about his deceased
wife. He takes off alone, in a huge Winnebago his wife had insisted they buy.
On the road, he soon comes to realize his own shortcomings. Perched atop his
parked RV, looking at the stars, he forgives his wife and asks her forgiveness
as well.
Then he drives to Denver to try one last time to save his daughter
(Hope Davis), but finally understands it’s too late. Schmidt attends and blesses
the wedding that is both hilarious and touching. He drives home crushed, almost
Willie Loman-like, thinking his life’s a failure. But he earns a small redemption.
Nicholson simply inhabits Schmidt. He soars beyond the sharp, perceptive
script, freely adapted by gifted Omaha-based writer-director Alexander Payne
(Election) from a novel by Louis Begley. Comedy humanely lightens the
senior-citizen glumness, especially in Denver, where Schmidt struggles to cope
with the tacky but good-hearted bridegroom (Dermot Mulroney) and his flirtatious
divorceé mom (Kathy Bates). It’s simultaneously rollicking slapstick and clever
social satire. Humanity to enjoy, moral purpose to savor; some nudity; recommended
for mature audiences.
THE HOURS
THE HOURS (O, PG-13): In 1925 Virginia Woolf’s novel
Mrs. Dalloway was designed as an experiment in literary
form, limiting the time to a single day and interweaving
the thoughts and experiences of two strangers—a rich woman
planning a party and a shell-shocked veteran who commits
suicide. The method was more important than the meaning.
Now, after being metamorphosed in Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel and adapted into film—where voiceover and intercutting techniques
are easy and commonplace—the emphasis is on the content. That (via Cunningham
and screenwriter David Hare) is gloomy stuff, centering on Woolf’s own life
problems, her creative angst, mental illness, bisexuality and suicidal urges,
as reflected in the lives of two American women, one and two generations later.
In 1951 Los Angeles, Laura (Julianne Moore), a pregnant and
depressed suburbanite, reads Woolf’s novel and ponders suicide even as she and
her little boy struggle to bake a birthday cake for her husband. In 2001 New
York, Clarissa (Meryl Streep), a literary editor, plans a party to honor the
ex-lover she’s been helping for years, a writer who is dying of AIDS.
The third story follows Woolf herself (Nicole Kidman) in 1923 in
England. She writes, broods and clashes with her caregiving husband about the
various aspects of her illness.
The interwoven stories share obvious common elements: the single-day
time frame, party preparation and deeply stressed protagonists. Homosexuality
and suicide are factors in all three.
Like many Irish, I’m attracted to sadness. But here, with deep human
issues and utterly no religious context, it’s like needles under the fingernails.
The artistry is superb, especially by the actresses portraying misery.
(Kidman won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Woolf.) A major script flaw
is that it requires audience background: You won’t walk in off the mall and
have much of a clue, oddly, on Woolf’s specialty, which is what’s going on inside
their heads. Director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) treats everyone with
compassion. Philip Glass’s music unifies and adds emotional wallop. Obvious
moral difficulties, but the taste is scrupulous; for mature viewers, with reservations.
CATCH ME IF
YOU CAN
CATCH ME IF
YOU CAN (A-3, PG-13) is a rare comedy from director Steven Spielberg,
based on the autobiography of con man Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio).
Frank left his broken home at 16 and in the 1960s successfully passed himself
off as an airline co-pilot, doctor and lawyer. He cashed over $4 million in
fraudulent checks.
Spielberg works this material as a cops-and-robbers game between
the brilliant and charming Abagnale and Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), the straight-arrow
F.B.I. forgery nerd and pursuer who is often embarrassed but never gives up
the chase.
“The more I got away with, the more of a game it
became—a game I knew I would ultimately lose,” explains
the real Frank Abagnale. Most of the fun is in the outrageousness
of Frank’s capers. As a new student in high school, he pretends
to be a substitute French teacher for a week. (His mother
is French.) As a pilot, he gets free rides and 300 paychecks,
but never flies a plane. As a doctor, he supervises, lets
his staff do the work and leaves when it gets queasy. And
he actually becomes a lawyer.
Frank inherits his risk-taking and people skills from his beloved
but erratic father (played with charisma and nuance by Christopher Walken).
The movie’s moral problems are probably less in the crime-sympathy area than
in Frank’s manipulation of women. It’s amusing for a while but he pays the
price. One cost is loneliness: In a persistent motif, he calls Hanratty every
Christmas because he has no one else to talk to. Slick and amusing, but with
moral ambiguities; 30 minutes too long.
BONHOEFFER
BONHOEFFER: The new documentary focusing on Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, the German Protestant pastor and theologian
who was one of the heroes of the religious anti-Nazi resistance,
began getting some exposure early this year. It was exhibited
four nights in January in Park City by church groups during
the week of the Sundance Festival, and is being shown in
several major cities this spring before probable exposure
on PBS.
It was financed by a group including the Franciscan Friars and Combined
Collections. Produced by Martin Doblmeier of Journey Films (Bernardin,
The Cardinal Suenens Story), the film is a powerful tribute to a
man whom people of faith must never forget. He came to realize it was his personal
mission to stay in Germany and speak out against a cruel, overwhelming tyranny
and especially its persecution of the Jews.
The film uses archival footage, scores of family photos and
images of key places, as well as commentary by friends, former students, relatives,
historians and theologians. It establishes the context of the times and Bonhoeffer’s
leadership role in convincing scholarly detail. There is also an emotional narrative
about a man, influenced by his visits to America and especially by black churches,
who understood the need for people of faith "to live completely in the world
with its duties, problems, successes and failures."
The images of the 1930s and 1940s in Germany are still awesome and
frightening. The excerpts from Nazi films still convey enormous power: Hundreds
of thousands salute and roar homage to the Führer.
With others who plotted to assassinate Hitler, the gentle, courageous
Bonhoeffer was executed during the last days of the war. God’s ministers, as
Dietrich knew well, had to face death in those dark days because it was their
time and their duty to stand up and be witnesses for Christ.
We won’t remember them now, except for a few lines in history books, without
tough, beautifully made documentaries like this. More
information about this film is available at www.journeyfilms.com.
ST. PATRICK’S
DAY VIDEOS
ST. PATRICK’S
DAY VIDEOS: This contemporary list (most were released in the 1990s)
includes good and/or challenging films made by or about the real Irish:
Frankie Starlight: A dwarf discovers astronomy, becomes a
famous writer and finds true love.
The Commitments: Roddy Doyle’s story is about working-class
kids in Dublin who organize a soul-music band.
Hear My Song: The search for a famous tenor is hilarious.
My Left Foot: This inspirational story focuses on Christy
Brown, who has cerebral palsy, and his remarkable mother.
In the Name of the Father: An innocent father joins his falsely
convicted son in a British prison.
Into the West: Two slum boys ride an enchanted white horse
into rural Ireland.
The Playboys: A pretty unwed mom in a rural village takes
her time choosing among suitors.
Widow’s Peak: An attractive newcomer joins a group of well-to-do
widows in control of a 1920s village.
Raining Stones: A Belfast plumber is obsessed with buying
his daughter an expensive First Communion dress.
The Secret of Roan Inish: A girl visiting her grandparents
in Donegal is fascinated by tales of Selkies (seal women).
