As Good As it Gets (1997)
director: james l. brooks
cast: jack nicholson, helen hunt, greg kinnear, cuba gooding jr, skeet ulrich, shirley knight, yeardley smith, lupe ontiveros, bibi osterwald, ross bleckner, bernadette balagtas, jaffe cohen, laurie kilpatrick, alice vaughn, brian doyle-murray
"As
Good As it Gets" is a James L. Brooks joint and I think he smoked a few
while working on this meandering celluloid sleep aid. Jack Nicholson stars as
the obsessive/compulsive misanthropic writer whose life becomes intertwined
with his gay artist neighbor (Greg Kinear) and his regular waitress (Helen Hunt).
Nicholson's nastiness is established in the very first scene as he unceremoniously
sends Kinear's dog down the garbage chute. What about the obsessive/compulsive
disorder, you ask? You see, Jack can't start his day without eating at the same
restaurant at the same table and being served by the same waitress every single
morning. One day, he arrives at the eatery to find two people sitting at his
regular table. He chases down waitress Hunt and bellows, "There are Jews
at my table!" he forces them to leave by assaulting them with acidic anti-Semitic
taunts. A few days later, his routine is suddenly turned upside down when he
is greeted by a new waitress who informs him that Hunt can't work because she
has to stay at home to care for her chronically ill son. Panicked, he makes
an unscheduled visit to his shrink, who refuses to see him. His only choice
is to pay a topnotch physician (Harold Ramis) to treat the kid so Hunt can go
back to work, allowing his own life to return to normal. At the same time, Nicholson
has been forced to care for gay blade Kinear's dog (remember the garbage chute?)
while Kinear recovers from a near-fatal beating he received from some thugs
he caught robbing him. The medical bills bankrupt Kinear and his agent cajoles
Nicholson into driving the bashed gay to Baltimore so he can hit his parents
up for some dough. Homophobic Nicholson recruits the obliged Hunt to chaperone
them. They embark on their road trip to Baltimore, resulting in the aforementioned
intertwining.
It
was at this point that I started thinking that I should drive to Baltimore myself
as it would move faster and prove more entertaining than the plodding tepidness
that was dripping out of the projector like a Chinese water torture. It was
disappointing to see Kinear's character introduced as the stereotypical prancing
faggot that Hollywood loves to throw at us. Fortunately, this is played down
as the film progresses. Hunt wins the award for making me sit up and actually
pay close attention for a couple minutes, not for her acting talent, but for
the rain-soaked shirt clinging to her torso. In other words, I chide Hollywood
for its shallow portrayal of homosexuals and applaud it for showing me a woman's
erect nipples. What can I say? Nicholson is the only reason to consider seeing
this latest excretion into the romantic comedy Porta-John. As with a Porta-John,
this movie should be rented and returned promptly after use. – Mike Santoro
$3.00
© 1997 Mike Santoro