I don't know how I managed to miss this film first time round. It is a rare, elegiac and utterly beautiful thing. Jack Nicholson is great. Arguably sentimental, but no worse for having that quality.
A life seen through the eyes of a man who has already nearly finished his - "I might die tomorrow or I might die in 20 years. It doesn't matter" - is in equal measure achingly sad and achingly funny. When his wife of 42 years dies suddenly and his only daughter is on the brink of matrimony with the unsuitable progeny of Bohemian trailer trash, Warren Schmidt blunders and crashes his way to some kind of realisation through his letters to an adopted [for $22 per month] African boy.
The American Dream has turned into a nightmare and Nicholson's performance accords it all the bewilderment and sense of disenfranchisement that rates Schmidt the cinematographic equal of Willy Loman - only much, much funnier and much, much more sad.
There are beautifully intelligent performances and articulate and sensitive direction throughout its entirety.
Perhaps it's my age, but I was utterly moved by nearly all of the film. Get it and see it.
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