About Schmidt

A moving story full of life.

Warren Schmidt is a 60-year-old man who has just retired. His life is not as satisfying as he had ever desired. Warren has just retired and he has nothing to do with her boring and depressing life. Worse, Warren’s only daughter Jeannie is about to marry Randall Hertzel, a non-desirable men and Warren tries to persuade Jeannie (Hope Davies) against her will.

When his undesirable wife dies, Jack Nicholson playing Schmidt realices that the issues of life and death go through life in the same trivializing way and his life undergo a sea change. He has to take decision on his problem and decides to sponsor a 6-year-old orphan child in Tanzania. Warren takes a journey alone in his new Winnebago Van from Nebraska to Denver, where his daughter is going to get married.

The closest correspondence between Warren Schmidt and Ndugu Umbu, his sponsored child, reveals the feelings Warren experiences during his van journey, when Warren faces meeting strangers, surprises, comic situations as well as bittersweet moments.

Director Alexander Payne shows the spectator through this often-funny drama about isolation the way Warren’s travel is a metaphor of his real life, the way he is destined for lifelong failures, humiliations and frustrations.

When Warren meets Randall’s peculiar mother in Denver, they start an uncommon relation that makes him to accept his daughter’s decision to marry Randall.

While writing letters to Ndugu and telling him questions that have accomplished him in life, Warren begins to catch a glimpse of what he has always been. He laments that his life has never made difference to anyone, that he has never highlighted among others, that he has never made difference for others.

Warren has anybody that accompanies him in his solitude, but one day, he receives a letter from Ndugu with a picture showing two smiling figures knocking their fingers in a sunny day.