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As Good as It Gets

 
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As Good As It Gets

 
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  • Director: James L. Brooks
  • AMG Rating: starstarstarstar
  • Genre: Romance
  • Movie Type: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life
  • Themes: Opposites Attract, Redemption, Age Disparity Romance
  • Main Cast: Jesse James, Harold Ramis, Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Skeet Ulrich, Shirley Knight
  • Release Year: 1997
  • Country: US
  • Run Time: 139 minutes
  • MPAA Rating: PG13

Plot

James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News) directed this $50 million-plus romantic comedy, set in Manhattan. Dysfunctional, acid-tongued romance novelist Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson), who suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder, takes pride in his ability to offend. At a nearby cafe, the only waitress willing to stand up to his sarcastic tirades is Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt), a single mother struggling to raise her chronically asthmatic son. In Melvin's West Village apartment building, talented contemporary artist Simon Nye (Greg Kinnear) lives across the hall from Melvin. Simon is the current darling of the New York art world, reason enough to draw Melvin's verbal fire, but Simon's gay lifestyle is further grist for the novelist's malicious mill. These three New Yorkers, none of whom appears to have a chance in hell at finding true happiness, discover their fates intertwined because of the fourth complicated character in the piece, Verdell, a tiny Brussels Griffon dog (played by newcomer Jill, after a 15-week training program). Melvin seems to have no friends or family, and he lives alone, working on his 62nd book.

When Simon goes into the hospital after a brutal mugging, Melvin has to take care of Verdell, and the dog actually warms Melvin's cold heart -- to the degree that he sets up unsolicited medical care for Carol's son. Eventually, Melvin is cornered into driving Simon and Carol to Baltimore, and during a hotel stopover, Melvin confesses to Carol, "You make me want to be a better man." The trip becomes an odyssey of self-realization for all three. Locations included Brooklyn's Prospect Park (Carol's neighborhood) and Greenwich Village (where Melvin's building is on 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues). Other exteriors were shot in downtown Los Angeles, where a dilapidated transient hotel at the corner of 4th Street and Main was transformed into the chic cafe where Carol works. Sets for the Simon/Melvin apartment interiors were erected on a soundstage at the Sony Pictures lot. Simon's paintings were created for the film by New York artist Billy Sullivan, whose work is part of the modern art collection at NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Review

Rarely does a character's emotional transformation translate with as convincing sincerity as it does with As Good As It Gets' curmudgeonly Melvin Udall, played to perfection by Jack Nicholson. Mark Andrus and director James L. Brooks' bitterly funny and surprisingly touching script was tailored to Nicholson; he won his third Oscar as the lovable misanthrope. Helen Hunt broke out of the TV-sitcom ghetto with her Oscar-winning turn as a bittersweet, beleaguered waitress and single mom. Rounding out the circle of improbable friends, Greg Kinnear provides effortless work as the gay neighbor who provides an important role in Melvin's unlikely transformation. Ultimately, what makes the film succeed is its careful mix of laughs, melodrama and romance: the jokes always relate to the characters' development, and the more serious moments never devolve into sentimental treacle. ~ Matthew Doberman, All Movie Guide

Cast

Yeardley Smith - Jackie; Lupe Ontiveros - Nora; Jesse James - Spencer Connelly; Harold Ramis - Dr. Betz; Jamie Kennedy - Street Hustler; Leslie Stefanson - Cafe Waitress; Wood Harris

Credit

Philip Too Lin - Art Director, Owen Wilson - Associate Producer, Francine Maisler - Casting, Richard Marks - Co-producer, John D. Schofield - Co-producer, Molly Maginnis - Costume Designer, Aldric La'Auli Porter - First Assistant Director, James L. Brooks - Director, Richard Marks - Editor, Laurence Mark - Executive Producer, Laura Ziskin - Executive Producer, Richard Sakai - Executive Producer, Hans Zimmer - Composer (Music Score), Bill Brzeski - Production Designer, John Bailey - Cinematographer, James L. Brooks - Producer, Kristi Zea - Producer, Bridget Johnson - Producer, Clay Griffith - Set Designer, Jeff Wexler - Sound/Sound Designer, Jake Jacobson - Unit Production Manager, Mark Andrus - Screen Story, Mark Andrus - Screenwriter, James L. Brooks - Screenwriter, Roger Schumacher - Animal Trainer/Wrangler, John C. Pattison - Properties

Similar Movies

Once Around; Sleepless in Seattle; Starting Over; Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon; Jerry Maguire; The Object of My Affection; Living Out Loud; You've Got Mail; Flawless; Pay It Forward; The Shipping News; The Tic Code
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Wikipedia: As Good as It Gets
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As Good as It Gets

Original film poster
Directed by James L. Brooks
Produced by Laura Ziskin
Written by Story:
Mark Andrus
Screenplay:
Mark Andrus
James L. Brooks
Starring Jack Nicholson
Helen Hunt
Greg Kinnear
Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Shirley Knight
Skeet Ulrich
Music by Hans Zimmer
Cinematography John Bailey
Editing by Richard Marks
Distributed by TriStar Pictures
Release date(s) December 25, 1997
Running time 139 min.
Language English

As Good as It Gets is a 1997 comedy film directed by James L. Brooks starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture and won for Best Actor and Best Actress. It portrays an obsessive-compulsive, misanthropic bigot who becomes involved in the lives of a single mother and gay neighbor and how they grow personally as a result of knowing each other. The movie is ranked number 140 on Empire's "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". [1]

Contents

Plot

Melvin Udall is a racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic misanthrope who works from home as a best-selling romance novelist in New York. He suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder which, paired with his misanthropy, puts off the neighbors in his apartment building in Manhattan as well as everyone with whom he comes into contact.

Melvin eats breakfast at the same table in the same restaurant every day using disposable plastic utensils he brings with him due to his pathological germophobia. He takes an interest in his waitress, Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt), the only server at the restaurant who can tolerate his demanding behavior.

One day, Melvin's neighbor, a gay artist named Simon Bishop (Greg Kinnear), is assaulted by one of his models in his own apartment when Simon walks in on the man's friends robbing him. Melvin is forced to take care of the artist's dog Verdell while he is in the hospital. Although he at first begrudgingly accepts to care for the dog, Melvin becomes emotionally attached to Verdell and at the same time gains more attention from Carol. When Carol decides to get a job closer to home so she can spend more time with her highly asthmatic son, Melvin's order of doing things during the day is ruined because she is no longer there to bring him his breakfast. He asks his publisher to send her husband, who is a doctor, to Carol's apartment to care for her son, with Melvin himself paying for the resulting medical expenses, so that Carol will be able to return to work. Wary of owing Melvin for this gesture and misunderstanding his reasons, Carol takes the train to his apartment in the middle of the night to tell him that she will not sleep with him.

In the meantime, Simon's assault and subsequent rehabilitation coupled with the fact that Verdell seems to like Melvin more than him have caused him to lose his creative muse. His friends convince him that he should go to Baltimore and ask his estranged parents for money, but in order to do this, Simon needs Melvin to drive. Melvin invites Carol to accompany them on the trip to lessen the awkwardness between the two men and so he can court Carol romantically. She reluctantly accepts the invitation and relationships between the three develop, especially between Carol and Simon.

At dinner in Baltimore, Melvin accidentally insults Carol's dress and she demands that he give her a compliment or she will leave. He then explains his condition to her and tells her that his doctor gave him the option of taking pills to see if they would bring his obsessive compulsive disorder under control, but Melvin refused. On the morning after Carol told him she would never sleep with him, he started taking the pills, telling her "You make me want to be a better man." Carol, very flattered, starts warming up to him, but when he accidentally insults her again, she storms out of the restaurant and returns to the hotel and Simon.

While trying to sleep, Simon accidentally sees Carol taking a bath and he is inspired by her beauty to start drawing again. The two spend the night together creating art, with Carol modeling for him. When Melvin returns in the morning he assumes that Carol slept with Simon but, even though he is proved wrong, the distance between him and Carol continues to grow.

After returning to New York City Carol tells Melvin that she doesn't want him in her life anymore because he only makes her feel bad about herself, though she later regrets it and calls him to apologize. The relationship between Melvin and Carol remains complicated until Simon, who has moved in with Melvin until he can get a new apartment, convinces Melvin to declare his love for her at her apartment in Brooklyn, where the two realize the depth of their personal connection. Melvin admits that he considers her the "greatest woman in the world" because of her caring nature. The film ends with Melvin and Carol taking a walk at five in the morning together to buy fresh rolls at the corner bakery.

Primary cast

Reception

The film received generally positive reviews from film critics and was nominated for and received many film awards, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and a Golden Globe award for Best Picture-Music or Comedy. Metacritic, a web site that evaluates films by averaging its overall critical response, gave the film a metascore of 67, signifying generally favorable reviews.[2] The film's two lead actors, Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, both received Academy and Golden Globe awards for their performances. Chicago Reader film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote that what director James Brooks "Manages to do with (the characters) as they struggle mightily to connect with one another is funny, painful, beautiful, and basically truthful--a triumph for everyone involved."[3]

However, praise for the film was not uniform among critics. Roger Ebert gave "As Good As it Gets," three stars (out of four) and called the film a "compromise, a film that forces a smile onto material that doesn't wear one easily," writing that the film drew "back to story formulas," but had good dialog and performances.[4]. Washington Post critic Desson Howe gave a generally negative review of the movie, writing that it "gets bogged down in sentimentality, while its wheels spin futilely in life-solving overdrive." [5]

As Good as It Gets was also a box office hit, opening at number three in the box office (behind Titanic and Tomorrow Never Dies) with $12.6 million dollars,[6] and eventually earning over $148 million domestically and $341 million worldwide.[7] It is Jack Nicholson's second most lucrative film, behind Batman. [8]

Awards won

Award nominations

References

  1. ^ http://www.empireonline.com/500/71.asp
  2. ^ Metacritic Retrieved on January 7, 2009
  3. ^ Chicago Reader review. Retrieved on January 7, 2009
  4. ^ Roger Ebert review Retrieved on January 7, 2009
  5. ^ Washington Post review. Retrieved on January 7, 2009
  6. ^ "Weekend Box Office Results for December 26–28, 1997". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=1997&wknd=52&p=.htm. Retrieved on 2009-07-06. 
  7. ^ "As Good as It Gets". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=asgoodasitgets.htm. Retrieved on 2009-07-06. 
  8. ^ "Batman (1989)". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=batman.htm. Retrieved on 2009-07-06. 

External links

Sister project Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: As Good as It Gets
Awards
Preceded by
Evita		 Golden Globe: Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
1997		 Succeeded by
Shakespeare in Love
v • d • e
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Arthur (1981) · Tootsie (1982) · Yentl (1983) · Romancing the Stone (1984) · Prizzi's Honor (1985) · Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) · Hope and Glory (1987) · Working Girl (1988) · Driving Miss Daisy (1989) · Green Card (1990) · Beauty and the Beast (1991) · The Player (1992) · Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) · The Lion King (1994) · Babe (1995) · Evita (1996) · As Good as It Gets (1997) · Shakespeare in Love (1998) · Toy Story 2 (1999) · Almost Famous (2000)

Complete List · (1951–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001–present)
v • d • e
Films directed by James L. Brooks
1980s
1990s
I'll Do Anything (1994) • As Good as It Gets (1997)
2000s
Spanglish (2004)

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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