ABOUT SCHMIDT
ABOUT SCHMIDT
Warren Schmidt lives a life of quiet desperation in the hills of Dundee, a subdivision in Omaha, Nebraska. A lifetime actuary of Woodmen of the World insurance company, he finally earns a coveted vice president of the firm. Gone are the dreams of being a tycoon in American capitalism in the last half of the 20th century. His vision of himself as a capitalist adventurer takes second place to job security, his wife and daughter.
Schmidt lives in an upper middle class home with a wife that rags and a daughter who does not live up to his expectations. He was a cold dad with a daughter who grows ever distant. He simmers with genteel hostility.
Then his imperfect world turns to chaos. His wife dies instantly while vacuuming the floor. The daughter chooses a waterbed salesman who is aesthetically and intellectually challenged. He discovers a best friend had dallied with his wife 25 years previously, and finds himself absolutely alone. He retires from the insurance company.
Schmidt saunters into ambiguity, anomie, and despair. Upon seeing an advertisement on television for a charity that supposedly helps third world orphans, he sends the necessary money and a biography of himself. Soon the young lad who was chosen by Schmidt begins to receive numerous letters from him unloading the travails of Schmidt’s new and difficult life.
Schmidt heads westward to Denver where his daughter is about to marry. There he discovers that his reservations about his daughter’s choices are magnified many times over. His new son-in-law is a sucker to pyramid schemes. Daughter is relegated to a shipping department in a local company. The mother is a randy, campy, blue-collar earth mother who begs Schmidt to skinny dip in the spa in the backyard. The biological father frequently talks to the dead. To make matters worse, his daughter is happy with her life.
One can assume that all her days spent as a sorority girl at Big Red (Nebraska University-Lincoln) are for naught.
Daughter wants to marry. She is 35 and at one with her choices. Warren ultimately plays the good soldier. Rocketed with alcohol and Percodan, Schmidt makes a wonderful toast and his daughter marries in a vaguely Protestant church, paneled with interior pressed wood cover veneer.
Finally, he returns home in his Winnebago on I-80 back to Omaha and an empty house. To his surprise, the young orphan that he sends money to every month, replies with a crayon drawing.
That final scene can be interpreted many ways, but for this reviewer it is hopeful. After 65 years of being some one who he is not, Schmidt finds himself. Our man Schmidt may now live a new life. His actuarial table suggests that he has 8 years to live, perhaps there will be many more.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
At the time that this has been written, the movie has received 2 Golden Globe awards and numerous SAG nominations.
Nearly all the scenes are shot in Omaha. Schmidt’s house is located at 54th and Farnam St. just east of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. The retirement dinner was filmed at Johnny’s Restaurant in southwest Omaha, and the conflict with an old friend in and around
50th and Center. His wife’s burial was taken at Hillcrest cemetery (my step-father is buried there along with a shirttail grandmother) and the Colorado scenes were filmed in the Cathedral area just north of the Radial highway. Kansas University scenes were really the campus of UNO.
Most of Nebraska is located in Omaha-Lincoln area and the two cities continue to grow together. A trip down the main thorough fare (Dodge Street) in rush traffic to the downtown and the Old Market area takes only about 10 minutes less than driving on I-80 to the outskirts of Lincoln. Omaha is slightly farther away from Scottsbluff, Nebraska than Chicago, Illinois.
Dundee/Country Club/ Aksarben area is filled with pretty brick homes and tall stately trees. Omaha is sunny and hilly which was not portrayed in the film. The city overlooks the Missouri river and numerous recreational facilities are being constructed there. Greater Omaha-Council Bluffs is about two-thirds of a million.
Alexander Payne is responsible for the location. His CITIZEN RUTH was shot in South Omaha, and the Oscar nominated THE ELECTION was filmed in West Omaha. Payne originates from Omaha and this last film provided a Keynesian stimulus of 40 million dollars to the city.
I spent my first 30 years attending K-12 and UNO, all, which are, located just a few miles from Schmidt’s house (5402 Farnam St.) in Omaha. My parents’ home was located on the edge of County Club. The subdivision was built on a former golf course and my elementary school was located just at the tip of a hill of roses and on the border of Country Club. Our next-door neighbor’s home was a farmhouse that dates itself previous to most of the subdivisions in the area.
You can cruise the neighborhood by going to REALTOR.COM Then click in Omaha and Dundee. Leave the rest blank. You can see for yourself. At the end of this review is also a map of the area.
My parent’s house was just up from Rose hill school, which boasts of prominent alumni such as Warren Buffet and Nick Nolte. If the mythical Schmidt should live so long he might choose Skyline Manor as his elder care. My mother and Buffet’s mother spent their final days there.
My mother left her home after 50 years and since then my trips to Omaha are spent in motels on the western edge of the city.
Payne suggests that you can go home again, but home has changed. As a kid, the edge of Omaha was at 72nd St. now it is at nearly 250th street.
That growth is called progress and/or sprawl and it’s right there in the river city.
The next topological belt is around Sioux City about 90 miles north of Omaha on I-29.
On a linguistic map, the folks in Sioux City are more likely to speak with a slight Scandinavian accent which one found in the movie FARGO. The scene in the motor home park with the couple from Wisconsin is just the accent of the folks in Upper Northwest Iowa. The area is some times called the Iowa Great Lakes, because of the pretty lakes and resorts in Spencer and Okoboji.
Jack Nicholson plays Schmidt and Kathy Bates excels in the earth mother role as Roberta Hertzel. The forlorn son Randall Hertzel is Dermott Mulroney. He was also a handsome lad in MY BEST FRIENDS WEDDING with Julia Roberts.
As you will be able to see on the map, the Omaha Chamber of Commerce wants the rest of America to know about the Dundee area and the beautiful Memorial park and the surrounding brick homes.
The neighborhood is not that different from the homes in MR. AND MRS. BRIDGE.
In other words, the area is one of the river cities finest.