by Curtis Edmonds -- blueduck@hsbr.org
As Good As It Gets is the best American comedy of 1997, which may or may not be a compliment. The competition so far has been sparse, not to say nonexistent. In a movie season that has brought us Father's Day, Magoo, Beautician and the Beast, two Joe Pesci comedies AND two Tim Allen comedies, As Good As It Gets is, uh, well, as good as it gets.
At first glance, As Good As It Gets doesn't appear to be anything more than a big-screen version of Seinfeld, with Simon (Greg Kinnear) playing straight man to Jack Nicholson's Melvin Udall, the wacky neighbor. (Kinnear's character is a gay artist, so maybe "straight man" isn't the proper terminology, but you understand what I'm trying to say, right? Good.)
Early on, Melvin shoves Simon's yappy little dog into a garbage chute. Wackiness ensues when Simon ineffectually confronts Melvin. Melvin delivers an eloquent stream of mean-spirited insults to a mortified Simon, and then slams the door. Wacky, right?
But then... we see Melvin lock the door. Then unlock it, then lock it again, then unlock it, then lock it again... and then repeat the process on the deadbolt lock. One-two-three-four-five. And then Melvin retreats to the bathroom, opens a new cake of soap from his stash, and washes his hands again and again.
As Good As It Gets is a comedy that dares to go beyond shallow, stereotypical characterization and treat its characters as real, three-dimensional human beings with problems. On the surface, Melvin Udall is a bitter, angry, sarcastic and bigoted bully -- but he's also a man struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder, trapped inside a set of bizarre routines and fixations.
To its credit, As Good As It Gets is not a sappy disease-of-the-week TV movie, either. Although we understand the reason behind Melvin's weirdly inappropriate behavior, Melvin is so creepy and twitchy that he never comes off as sappy or tragic. Melvin's OCD is played for laughs throughout the movie, especially his terror of stepping on a crack in the sidewalk. (The set designers regularly confront Melvin with tiled floors.) Where a lesser movie might turn sentimental or weepy, As Good As It Gets strikes right for the comic jugular and never lets go.
The part of Melvin was written for Jack Nicholson, and there's not another actor alive who could have made the character believable and charming. He hasn't had a part this meaty since Batman, and he makes the most of his opportunity. Helen Hunt, as the waitress who is alternately charmed and tormented by Melvin's antics, is superb, showing a surprising amount of range and depth that wasn't present in Twister. The script takes Hunt's character through the emotional wringer, but she's always charming, always believable, and always compelling. I hadn't seen Greg Kinnear in anything other than TV's Talk Soup, and his performance here is genuinely good. Although he's not in the same acting weight class as Nicholson or Hunt, Kinnear is sympathetic without being sappy, and manages to be sad and depressing without being pitiful and annoying. Cuba Gooding Jr. turns in a slick extended cameo as the most kickass art dealer in Manhattan, and Yeardley Smith (of "The Simpsons") has one painfully funny scene where she has to use notecards to brief the injured Kinnear on his financial situation.
All honor and credit goes to director/producer James Brooks for this fine movie. Brooks is a voice crying in the creative wilderness that is Hollywood. He has consistently produced grown-up comedies with real people dealing with real-life situations (Jerry Maguire, Broadcast News, War of the Roses) while the rest of Hollywood relies on rubber-faced antics and bathroom humor. I encourage you to see this movie -- not just because it's very good and very funny -- but because you'll be casting your vote for quality entertainment and against the dreck that gets passed around like leftover fruitcake this time of year.
Grade: A
-- Curtis Edmonds blueduck@hsbr.org
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