Isn't It Ironic
About Schmidt opens with a closure, as Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson), an actuary at a life insurance company, enters retirement. Time for Warren to say farewell to his career and welcome an entirely new chapter — a transition he meets with a great deal of fear, doubt, and reserve.
With so much more time on his hands, he slowly realises his life lacks depth and meaning. He fixates on things out of his control: the fact that he's been replaced by a young and fresh talent at the firm, the small annoying habits of his wife Helen, and later, the flaws of his future son-in-law. One evening, moved by a TV commercial, he becomes a foster-dad to an African orphan in Tanzania, Ndugu Umbu, and — encouraged by the foster-program leaflet — starts writing him letters.
Sadly, when a new family member enters the man's life, an old one leaves it forever. Warren returns from a trip to the post office only to discover that his wife has died of a blood clot in her brain.
Sadly, when a new family member enters the man's life, an old one leaves it forever.
Life without his caring wife has its ups and downs. Finally, to escape the downs, Warren sets off on a trip in the Winnebago Adventurer motor home he and Helen had recently bought together. While on the road, he keeps writing to his foster son, pouring his thoughts, hopes, and frustrations onto the page. With time, less and less of the frustrations. Having someone to "talk to" seems to have a genuinely therapeutic effect on him.
About Schmidt tells us the awful truth. It hands us a perfectly ordinary life, sour-sweet aftertaste and irony fully intact — a lesson to find joy in the little things, and not to become a sad, sad man. The quality of appreciation, the ability to see the bright side of things and events outside our control. Finally, the realisation that not ending up a multimillionaire CEO of some international corporation doesn't automatically make a life meaningless. Finding meaning is entirely within our own power — and Warren finds his, in the very last scenes.
Better late than never — because, as Alanis Morissette sang: "It's a black fly in your Chardonnay / It's a death row pardon two minutes too late / Isn't it ironic, don't you think? / It's like rain on your wedding day / It's the good advice that you just didn't take."
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