Synopsis
About Schmidt (2002) is a deadpan American comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Director Alexander Payne adapted Louis Begley's novel into one of Jack Nicholson's most restrained performances — a role that landed him a Golden Globe nomination. Warren Schmidt has spent forty years as an actuary in Omaha. The day he retires, he realises he has absolutely no idea who he is.
His wife dies. His daughter Jeannie, played by Hope Davis, is about to marry Randall — a dim, mullet-sporting waterbed salesman brought to life by Dermot Mulroney. Schmidt climbs into an RV and drives across the country, officially heading to Denver for the wedding, actually trying to figure out whether he wasted his life. He processes it all by writing letters to a six-year-old Tanzanian boy he sponsors through a charity — and in those letters he's more honest than he's ever managed to be in person. Kathy Bates took home a Golden Globe for her turn as Randall's outrageous mother Roberta.
Payne keeps the tone dry and the sympathy real — a film about a man no one would call interesting, told in a way that makes him impossible to dismiss. Stream About Schmidt (2002) online on iFILM.
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