About Schmidt

About Schmidt is about a man who realises that his life has been wasted. His name is Warren Schmidt, and when the film begins he is just about to enjoy his retirement with his wife Helen after long and loyal service with an insurance company.

Already at his retirement party, despondency lurks in Schmidt. When his wife dies and Schmidt is left alone, the gloom turns into an outright existential crisis. Schmidt discovers that he can be replaced with the greatest of ease at the job that has been his be-all and end-all.

In his private life he has never needed anyone, and now nobody needs him, not even his only child, his grown-up daughter Jeannie. She is about to marry the salesman and buffoon Randall, whom Schmidt definitely does not think is good enough for his daughter. But his words fall on deaf ears. When Jeannie turns down his offer of a helping hand with the wedding, Schmidt, out of sheer frustration, sets off on a road trip in his wife's big motorhome, without becoming any the wiser for it.

About Schmidt is a rather atypical Hollywood film, for there is not much narrative drive in Alexander Payne's drama. What we get instead is a precise portrait of the petit bourgeois Warren Schmidt. At times, however, the film becomes too long-winded and static, so that one wonders why the running time has been allowed to exceed two hours.