As Good As It Gets
It makes perfect sense that As Good As It Gets opens on Christmas Day.
The movie is a gift to moviegoers -- an honest, original comedy about
recognizable human beings.
It's almost impossible to overstate how rare it is to see a star-driven
Hollywood movie with such unpredictable characters and intelligent
storytelling.
The star here is Jack Nicholson, who plays Melvin Udall, an utterly
loathsome romance novelist and an obsessive-compulsive to boot.
Melvin is a boor, a bully, a sexist, a racist, an anti-Semite and every
other form of misanthropic SOB. The first time we see him, he dumps a
dog down a garbage chute.
This is the kind of role that actors love and stars dread; most leading
men as famous as Mr. Nicholson would insist on softening Melvin's
acidic edge. But Mr. Nicholson gives it everything he's got.
Such full-bodied perversity makes it all the more compelling to see him
respond to Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt), a no-nonsense waitress at the
restaurant where Melvin eats daily.
She throws him into a crisis when she quits so she can work closer to her
ailing son. For entirely selfish reasons, Melvin makes a generous gesture
that confuses Carol as much as it delights her.
Meanwhile, Melvin's rigid ways are undermined by his neighbor Simon
(Greg Kinnear), owner of the trash-binned dog. By way of retribution,
Simon's art-dealer friend Frank (Cuba Gooding Jr.) guarantees that
Melvin will lend a hand when horrific bad luck strikes the artist.
Again, Melvin's motives are purely selfish, but the effect is to drag him
into the kind of relationships he thought he didn't need. It's a fascinating
transformation, driven as much by the marvelous performances of Ms.
Hunt and Mr. Kinnear as by Mr. Nicholson.
The engine behind this wonderful film is director James. L. Brooks,
director and co-writer (with Mark Andrus). His hand is sure, his faith in
his characters is absolute, and his bond with his cast is awe-inspiring.
If we're lucky, really lucky, movie fans get to see one tremendous
character-based comedy in any given year.