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Rating: The day has come when Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) retires. After a life dedicated to work, he realizes that nothing is truly interesting; the societal scheme has made him a slave to the extent that he cannot appreciate leisure time, and without his job, his life is useless. After empty and unproductive days, he decides, through a commercial, to sponsor a child at a distance, to whom he writes many letters filled with regrets and frustrations about his past. His wife Helen dies, leaving him alone; his only link to life is his daughter, who is about to marry a buffoon in Denver. Now Schmidt, after continuing to waste time living in his own filth, wants to jolt his life by attempting to reconnect with his daughter, trying to dissuade her from the wedding. Thus begins his journey in a camper towards Denver, revisiting the places of his youth, remembering that when he was young, he felt special, aware that his life now was nothing but flat and full of regrets. His turning point does not end well; his daughter marries, and he, resigned during the wedding, can only give a speech congratulating the newlyweds. Back home, among the pile of overdue mail, there's a letter from the child he sponsored, and Warren cries, realizing after a misspent life that he has finally been important to someone.
In the film, we can see a depiction of the modern man, gray, dissatisfied, and inept. Warren retraces a journey akin to Ulysses, but without glories, only defeats and humiliations; his presence on earth had left no mark. At work, he was replaced by a much more enterprising young man, his love for his late wife vanishes angrily after discovering she was cheating on him with his best friend; his daughter only sought him for money and was getting married (despite his disapproval) to a waterbed salesman. The life he lived seemed to be ending, and he didn't collect any real satisfaction. Not surprisingly, in several parts of the film, the protagonist encounters trucks full of livestock bound for slaughterhouses on his journey, as if to explain that the current human existence is nothing but a march towards an anonymous death.
The turning point lies in the "small things." That child sponsorship, done almost to ease his conscience, turns out to be the most important action of his life; both Warren and the little orphan were saved from a cruel existence.
The film flows pleasantly, on a razor's edge, between dramatic and comic. We find Warren's character amusing when, in his existential battle, he only manages to appear goofy and clumsy, yet at the same time, there is sadness in seeing him trapped in a mute old age, pandered to but never truly considered. His sensitive side, hidden by his meticulous flatness and stubbornness, only emerges in his solitude when he is sidelined by a world too busy to listen to him. So much so that he needs to vent by writing letters to a child.
Jack Nicholson is convincing in his role, although I must say that I couldn't find him fully satisfying in a "loser" role. The sketches with Kathy Bates are amusing, as she is also one of the pillars of the film. Payne succeeds well in his work by showing us a dull, rather kitschy America, empty and clinging only to superficial principles, where the so-called "normal" people are fake and duplicitous, while the sincere ones are considered odd and depraved. Warren cannot belong to either group; he tries to let go, but his bourgeois morality traps him in utter solitude.
The film is poetic and profound, managing to strike the viewer with good moments of flat everyday life alternated with dramatic events and cases of pure schizophrenia. The protagonist is none other than ourselves, confused, alone, and repressed. He tries to escape reality by sometimes exaggerating, yet returns to his dimension awkwardly and fearfully. He wants the best from his life but ends up with just a handful of nothing; projects don't always end as we want, and in disappointment, we despise everything around us until we hate ourselves. In conclusion, as often happens, happiness emerges when least expected, sometimes right after a great bitterness.
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