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About Schmidt

The movie About Schmidt was based on the book About Schmidt.

Which one did you like better, the movie or the book?  There are 6 votes for the book, and 8 votes for the movie.

Movie details for About Schmidt

The movie was released in 2002 and directed by Alexander Payne, who also directed Election (1999) and Sideways (2004). About Schmidt was produced by New Line Home Entertainment. More information on the movie is available on Amazon.com and also IMDb.

Actors on this movie include Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, June Squibb, Howard Hesseman, Harry Groener, Connie Ray, Len Cariou, Mark Venhuizen, Cheryl Hamada, Phil Reeves, Matt Winston, James M. Connor, Jill Anderson, Vaughan Wenzel, Judith Kathryn Hart, Marilyn Tipp, Robert Kem and Melissa Hanna.

 

Read More About This Movie

While confirming Jack Nicholson's status as an American national treasure, About Schmidt is sure to provoke polarized reactions. Stoked by the success of Election, director Alexander Payne and cowriter Jim Taylor have altered Louis Begley's novel to su... Read More
While confirming Jack Nicholson's status as an American national treasure, About Schmidt is sure to provoke polarized reactions. Stoked by the success of Election, director Alexander Payne and cowriter Jim Taylor have altered Louis Begley's novel to suit their comedic agenda, turning Nicholson's titular character into a 66-year-old, newly retired Omaha insurance actuary, weary from decades of drudgery and passionless marriage. When his wife suddenly dies, he attempts to reclaim his life in a king-sized Winnebago, desperate to convince his daughter (Hope Davis) not to marry the Denver dimwit (Dermot Mulroney) whose mother (Kathy Bates) has her own baggage of peculiar peccadilloes. Nicholson perfectly (and often hilariously) nails the seething anger beneath his character's façade of resignation, but Payne and Taylor convey cold-hearted contempt for these Midwestern malcontents. Think of this as Ikiru with bleaker humanity, until Schmidt finds meaning--and some small reward--in a quiet gesture of goodwill. Love it or hate it, About Schmidt is a movie you won't soon forget. --Jeff Shannon

Book details for About Schmidt

About Schmidt was written by Louis Begley. The book was published in 1996. More information on the book is available on Amazon.com.

 

Read More About This Book

8 Hours 35 Minutes. Louis Begleys perceptive novel hums with emotional energy and shimmers with haunting images. A National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, About Schmidt is a powerful meditation on loneliness, desire, and transformation. Old-school la... Read More
8 Hours 35 Minutes. Louis Begleys perceptive novel hums with emotional energy and shimmers with haunting images. A National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, About Schmidt is a powerful meditation on loneliness, desire, and transformation. Old-school lawyer Albert Schmidt has spent years carefully climbing the ladder of success. But now, at what should be the pinnacle of his career, his life is in chaos. Within months, he is widowed and forcibly retired from his firm. He harbors painfully mixed feelings about his ambitious daughters impending marriage. Suddenly, in the midst of this turmoil, a seductive young woman asks Smitty what he wants. Far from being a time of satisfaction and complacency, the middle age encountered by Begleys hero is the beginning of a new journeytantalizing, yet unnerving. From the first step, Begley draws the reader deeply into a mans quest for new ways to understand an unstable world.