‘About Schmidt’ rings true

In theaters

ABOUT SCHMIDT, directed by Alexander Payne, written by Payne and Jim Taylor, 124 minutes, rated R. Now playing, Movie City 8.

The new Alexander Payne movie, “About Schmidt,” is about a man forced to face himself in retirement, figure out who he is in the process and get on with his life in spite of sensing that the world could care less if it went on without him.

The man in question is 66-year-old Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson), and the first time we see him, he’s staring at the clock in his empty office, waiting for the day to end so he can begin his new life as a retired actuary from Omaha’s Woodmen of the World Insurance Co.

In spite of what you might expect, the prospect of retiring from a place called Woodmen of the World hardly is something that delights Warren. Indeed, if anything, it means he’ll soon be touring the country with someone he fears he doesn’t know and never really has known – his wife of 42 years, Helen (stage actress June Squibb).

More troubling to Warren is the idea that he and Helen will be traveling within arm’s reach of each other in their new Adventurer, the enormous Winnebago that somehow stretches longer than the silences that stretch between them.

But when a sudden, life-altering event occurs and Warren is cast into uncharted territory, an inward journey of self-discovery erupts, one that finds him trying to prevent his only child, Jeannie (Hope Davis), from throwing away her life by marrying a mullet-haired loser named Randall (Dermot Mulroney), while also pouring out all of his sadness and rage in countless letters to Ndugu, the 6-year-old Tanzanian boy Warren adopted through a children’s aid agency for $22 a month.

How does all of this play out onscreen? Beautifully. As directed by Payne (“Election,” “Citizen Ruth”) from a script Jim Taylor based on Louis Begley’s novel, “About Schmidt” is funny and poignant, a smart, quietly observed film that finds Nicholson at the top of his game, cooling the manic outbursts audiences have come to expect from him to deservedly score his 12th Academy Award nomination, one he very well might win come March.

The film’s other Academy Award nominee is Kathy Bates. As Randall’s mother, Roberta, a multiorgasmic, twice-divorced hippie whose passion for “white-hot sex” hasn’t diminished over the years, Bates doesn’t show up until 75 minutes into the film, but when she does, she nails the role, disrobing in front of Warren in one particular scene that’s never as sensational as we’ve been led to expect. Instead, it feels natural and unforced, a testament to Bates and her excellent performance.

What “About Schmidt” gets right are the small details of a life not so much lived as existed, such as the retirement party Woodmen throws for Warren, which feels more like a wake than a celebration, or when Warren returns to his childhood home to see that it’s been turned into a tire store.

“My bedroom was over there,” Warren says to the bewildered manager. “And the living room, over there.” The emotional pull of that scene comes from the idea that for Warren, there appears to be no room left for living. His quest to overcome the deep emptiness and grief he feels at that moment is what makes “About Schmidt” such a memorable and ultimately moving film.

Grade: A

On video and DVD

THE FOUR FEATHERS, directed by Shekhar Kapur, written by Michael Schiffer and Hossein Amini, 127 minutes, rated PG-13.

In Shekhar Kapur’s “The Four Feathers,” the seventh screen adaptation of A.E.W. Mason’s 1902 novel, a Royal officer accused of cowardice goes to the ends of the Earth to prove otherwise by throwing himself into a war in which he doesn’t believe.

In the film, Heath Ledger is that officer – Harry Feversham – a young man who ditches his commission on the eve of war and thereby disappoints just about everyone who matters in his life, from his four closest friends to his brooding father and ultimately to his fiancee, Ethne Eustace (Kate Hudson), a pretty pill who bawls like a baby the moment she believes she has fallen for a coward.

While a little British reserve would have been welcome on Ethne’s part, Kapur is hellbent on cranking up the histrionics while getting in a few critical digs at Britain’s expense.

With his gloves off, he sends Harry to the Sudan to masquerade as an Arab and to prove he never deserved the four feathers of cowardice he received from his friends and – ouch – even Ethne.

His best friend, Jack (Wes Bentley), withheld his feather, but that’s not enough to tickle Harry, whose trip to the Sudan sparks a friendship with Abou Fatma (Djimon Hounsou), which ultimately opens one ugly can of Middle Eastern worms.

With so much melodrama drumming onscreen, it’s sometimes difficult to appreciate what the film does well, such as Kapur’s beautifully filmed battle sequences and Robert Richardson’s lush cinematography, both of which do their best to compete with the dullness of the one-dimensional characters but none of which eclipse the Technicolor beauty of Zoltan Korda’s 1939 British version of the book.

In the end, what proves insurmountable is Kapur’s belief that he can depict the Brits negatively while also turning them into the heroes of his film. You can’t have it both ways and “The Four Feathers” doesn’t.

Grade: C

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays and Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.