Reviews

(Some spoilers; just trying to describe the movie)

This was a telefilm produced by both the US and the UK and shown on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre. It's really like watching several seemingly different stories unfold, and the satisfaction of seeing them all tie into one another. It's a patient story, so I don't want to say it's "slow" or "boring" but I advise people to really let the film set its own pace, reveal its complex characters and the bigger story of what faith means to a person. It's not a religious story, but it shows multiple views of personal faith: the conflict between a logic-minded son and his father who is a church leader; the effect on Christianity and strict parenting which alienates a daughter and allows her to be vulnerable to a mysterious cult. It also touches on the secular blind faith behind historical institutions -- how our own histories are like Biblical passages, unwilling to be rewritten or reconsidered. I was really impressed by this story. It left more questions than answers, and that's what made it so compelling and unforgettable. The story picks up the pace when James Earl Jones' character, a de-programmer, is hired by the mother of the family who lost their daughter to the strange doomsday cult. In order to get her back, they essentially have to kidnap her and brainwash her again to get her back to normal, a process that is intentionally uneasy, meant to make you think cult de-programming is no different than cult re-programming. But don't get me wrong -- this in no way sanctifies cults in any way. To loosely quote a character from the movie: there are signs and wonders everywhere -- it simply depends on what you want see.

I feel silly warning that there are "spoilers" in this review -- it's not like this is the Crying Game or the Sixth Sense. You don't go through the whole plot of the movie and find out at the end, shock upon shock, that Jack Nicholson's character is actually the long-dead ghost of a transvestite (but that would be pretty wild). If anything, this film contains an almost surprising absence of rigged plotlines and silly twists. In a strange and haunting narration of dry humor and sad moments, you watch a man reach what's been called the Golden Years and wonder what's so damn golden about it. On the verge of Winnebagoing around the country in his new life of retirement, Jack Nicholson's Schmidt is struck by the sudden death of his wife of over 40 years. In thinking about hi wife before her untimely demise, he realizes the spark of their marriage fizzled long ago, and to him, she's nothing but a necessary caretaker with annoying habits. The shock of her death remains muffled by his own ennui about his own measure of his life. His only daughter lives states away, too busy with work to visit, and is about to marry a mullet-sporting, yet sincere, dimwit -- a man unfit to marry (in Schmidt's mind) his perfect, treasured princess. He feels as though he's failed in his professional life, now obsolete, with only dreams and regrets to dig away at him.

Before his eyes, he realizes that his life is at the end stretch and he asks the ultimate question: what have I done with my life -- what do I have to show for myself? As he drives his huge, but empty Winnebago out to his daughter's wedding, Schmidt travels the road and the paths of his own thoughts, coming to terms with the ghosts in his life to realize one of life's ultimate truths -- that it isn't what you make of your life, but how you touch others' lives and how they affect your own. In lesser hands, this movie could have been a sappy, sobbing mess, but the story is so rooted in the reality of life, its unfairness, and its quiet moments of grace, that this uninteresting nobody, Schmidt, becomes an elevated figure representing everyone's need to feel a part of this world. Jack Nicholson gives a fantastic performance, portraying private, lost moments of grief when he realizes how important his wife was to him, and how she really was so much more than just a homemaker. He comes to realize his daughter has grown up and that his idealized vision of her as his shining, perfect little girl must be broken to accept the fact that she has her own life and makes decisions that he may not always approve of. In that realization, he makes his own sacrifice and growth as a person, letting go of his unrealistic ideals to show his ultimate contribution to the world -- his ability to be the better man, to wish good upon others, and to not ruin their happiness for the sake of his own. In that moment, while he still feels he is a failure in letting his child enter an unfit marriage, the viewer sees that sometimes it is in the things that you give, even at the expense of your own personal satisfaction, that truly marks your place as a decent human being in the greater scheme of things. In the end, Schmidt eventually realizes this and is finally able to weep, for his wife and for himself.