Sunday afternoon we went to see this unspectacular film on the life of an insurance mathematician after his retirement. It was a rather slowly paced affair which had the advantage that I could follow the conversations almost perfectly. Very often American films are difficult to understand for me. People mumble a lot in a speed making my 39 year old brain dizzy. Not here. There wasn’t even a soundtrack (except Satie when Mr Schmidt drove with his mobile home). My attention went to 100% to Jack Nicholson who played the pensioner. Let’s be honest. Warren Schmidt’s life hadn’t exactly been exciting before the retirement and is neither after. Warren lives in Omaha, in the Midwest. In another blog by someone from Omaha I read something funny about Western Kansas. It is supposed to be the only place where you can fall asleep driving a car and after the car has left the road it will only stop when the gasoline is out. Whatever. Let’s move back to the story. Warren is married and has a daughter. His relation to his wife is a typical relation I’d think. He thinks she has never understood him after 40 years of marriage. Not that it is really clear what there is to understand about Warren. He is a very average, very normal person. But he is a very real person, an archetype if you want. We are surrounded by Warren Schmidt’s in this world. And if we think about it there is a Warren Schmidt in everyone of us. Warren Schmidt is a character out of a Beckett play. Sorry, I didn’t tell you anything about the plot of the film or any scenes. There are some scenes where I laughed tears. What I really loved about the film was its amazing realism. I saw myself and my environment in it. And it was very funny. Especially the sad scenes. By the way Kathy Bates is a genius. She was perfect in Misery but here she is godlike.