Hall of Unhappy Faves:
As Good As It Gets
For months, I have been searching for a movie that belongs in the Unhappy Hall Of Fame (really should just be Hall of Faves) with no success. As soon as I had decided that a movie was good enough, I would simultaneously decide that it didn’t wow me. The Karate Kid doesn’t wow me either but it is a seminal picture of my youth, as is Crocodile 2 and The Neverending Story. Not only that but those movies made me the unhappy bastard you see in your glowing screens of blogosphere goodness. So I guess my hall of fame movies are really just collection of movie that I love and that you may look at and say “This boy got no taste.” I’d bet though that you might, upon stumbling across The Karate Kid on cable/satellite, give it a little more of chance than you did before. I also wanted to give a forum for movies that people love but don’t get critical recognition. My most recent inductee into the Hall of Faves is As Good As It Gets (which did get critical recognition) starring the late Jack Nicholson. He’s still alive? Eeek sorry. Haven’t seen too many Lakers games this year…and didn’t he do some bucket list or something with Morgan Freeman? Never mind, the movie is still a favorite of mine. Not for the one liners or the faces Nicholson makes. Are you sure he’s alive? I know Frank Caliendo does a passable impression. Okay, I’m letting that one go.
As Good As It Gets is at the core a love story. Melvin Udall is a successful romance writer who is burdened by OCD. He turns his locks 3 times, washes his hands religiously with scalding hot water and a new bar of soap each time, and has to eat his lunch in the same booth, served by Helen Hunt’s waitress Carol. Melvin’s life is contained and he tolerates the other people in his world as long as they don’t bother him or interfere with his system. When someone does infringe on his world, they are met with a sharp tongued insult and perhaps a door in their face. Most famously is the maid of his next door neighbor, Simon who asks Melvin to keep an eye on Simon receives the line “Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City "Sailor wanna hump-hump" bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.” Life is probably as good as it is going to get for Melvin and he is fine with that as long as it doesn’t mean his life has to change. Change is the enemy to Melvin and he will live quite satisfactorily as long as he can get his breakfast from Carol, write his books and ignore every human being. Melvin is character that doesn’t want to be better, doesn’t feel the need to be a better man and who most would say doesn’t deserve love.
Carol is a single mother, living with her mom and asthmatic son in Brooklyn. She longs for more but is stuck, much like Melvin, in a routine of fear over her son’s constant medical emergencies and her need to make a little money to pay for his medical bills. She tolerates Melvin and allows him his little eccentricities but she rarely tolerates his rudeness and is the only person who calls him on it. For this reason alone, Carol is the only person capable of seeing goodness in Melvin and caring about him. When her son’s medical problems take her away from the restaurant, Melvin is forced to act to maintain his routine by paying for a doctor to help Carol’s son. I’ve never been much of a Helen Hunt fan but here, perhaps due to the excellent writing, she is a complete character and someone who can make Melvin feel a little better about himself.
Melvin’s next door neighbor Simon (Greg Kinnear), a gay artist who hires male prostitutes to model for him, also pulls Melvin in a new direction. When Simon walks in on Scream’s Skeet Ulrich robbing him, he is beaten to within an inch of his life and his dog needs a place to stay. Simon’s agent, Frank Sachs (Cuba Gooding Jr.), doesn’t pay attention to Melvin’s blusters and tells him that he needs to watch Simon’s dog Verdell (who he once sent on a trip down the garbage chute), as Simon recovers. Another wrench in the machine of a perfectly acceptable life. Yet as Melvin cares for Verdell, he starts to like the dog and actually starts to feel love for something other than himself. A lot of time is devoted to Carol making Melvin want to be a better man but it is Verdell that begins the process towards being better. Indeed it is Carol’s extra attention paid to Melvin when Verdell is there that leads Melvin down the path to love. Without the dog, Melvin would most definitely still be a miserable Scrooge of a man. So when Simon is well enough to care for Verdell, Melvin is reluctant to give him back.
Meanwhile, Simon's assault and rehabilitation, coupled with Verdell's preference for Melvin, causes Simon to lose his creative muse. Simon is approaching bankruptcy due to his medical bills. Frank convinces Simon to go to Baltimore and ask his estranged parents for money. Frank offers Melvin use of his car for the trip. Melvin invites Carol to accompany them on the trip to lessen the awkwardness and to spend time with her. She reluctantly accepts the invitation, and finds an emotional mate in the unavailable Simon as they travel. Simon recounts the tale of the last time he spoke to his father and upon learning that he is gay, pressed a big pile of money into his hand and told him to never come back home. Carol is touched by the story and offers a supportive ear to Simon. Melvin is mostly bored by the tale. Once in Baltimore, Carol agrees to have dinner with Melvin after hearing that her son was playing soccer, which was out of the question before Melvin’s involvement. Melvin's comments during the dinner both show a side to Melvin she didn’t see before and greatly upset Carol. When he claims that he brought her on the trip as a buffer to gay Simon, she abruptly leaves, fed up with him and his attitude. She returns to the hotel room and draws a bath for herself in Simon’s side of the suite. Upon seeing the frustrated Carol, Simon begins to sketch her and rekindles his creativity, once more feeling a desire to paint. He decides that he does not need his father’s money and has Melvin drive him home with a still angry Carol along for the ride.
After returning to New York City, Carol tells Melvin that she does not want him in her life anymore, and storms away. Melvin takes Simon upstairs to explain that they had to sell off Simon’s condo and that Melvin had Frank move his personal items into his apartment. In taking Simon in, Melvin shows that he has grown as a character and that Carol, Verdell and Simon have all changed him into being a better human being. It is this moment that makes this movie a Hall of Faves movie for me. Melvin explains that Carol has flummoxed him and “evicted” him from his life. I’ve often searched for the words as to how I feel at times when everything is bleak. Evicted is the term that fits best. I don’t really stop living but in the end, I am not really moving forward or backward. I am evicted from being in love with someone else and I am evicted from living my life normally. It is obsessive and scary but you keep living, just not well. That is where Melvin is by the end of the movie. He is living but without Carol, he doesn’t really live well. Simon convinces Melvin that he needs to tell Carol how he feels, not later but now and Melvin goes to Carol’s to give it one more shot.
The genius of this movie is that it shows that even those who don’t deserve love need it at a fundamental level. You cannot be complete without love. Love of friends, family, a dog or the woman who makes you want to be a better man. The woman that changed you and made you something that makes it impossible to go back to the man you once were. The evictor and holder of your life. As she goes, so do you. Carol is Melvin’s true north, she leads him from darker places and shows him that he can be loved for who he is. It may be easier to take that Melvin and find someone new that you can love who may not have known you when. Yet you don’t want to. You never fully want to be with a person because you know that there is someone out there that gets you completely and in some small way, accepted you for it. I don’t know why this hits me as strong as it has but it probably has something to do with my own evictor and the person that I want to be with and can’t. As Good As It Gets tells a story that is valuable to us all. A story about love and acceptance and that change is good as long as your compass still has that true north.
Mr. Unhappy sez: I’ve been evicted from my life and this film helped me realize that.
Memorable Quotes:
Melvin: People who talk in metaphors oughta shampoo my crotch.
***
Melvin: [enters his psychiatrist's office] Hi.
[shuts door]
Melvin: *Help!*
Dr. Green: If you want to see me, you will not do this. You will make an appointment.
Melvin: Dr. Green, how can you diagnose someone as an obsessive compulsive disorder, and then act like I have some choice about barging in here?
***
Melvin: I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me.
***
Melvin: I've got a really great compliment for you, and it's true.
Carol: I'm so afraid you're about to say something awful.
Melvin: Don't be pessimistic; it's not your style. Okay, here I go: Clearly, a mistake. I've got this, what - ailment? My doctor, a shrink that I used to go to all the time, he says that in fifty or sixty percent of the cases, a pill really helps. I *hate* pills, very dangerous thing, pills. Hate. I'm using the word "hate" here, about pills. Hate. My compliment is, that night when you came over and told me that you would never... all right, well, you were there, you know what you said. Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning, I started taking the pills.
Carol: I don't quite get how that's a compliment for me.
Melvin: You make me want to be a better man.
Carol: ...That's maybe the best compliment of my life.
Melvin: Well, maybe I overshot a little, because I was aiming at just enough to keep you from walking out.
***
Carol: OK, we all have these terrible stories to get over, and you-...
Melvin: It's not true. Some of us have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're that pissed that so many others had it good.
***
Melvin: I'm dying here.
Simon: Because you love her.
Melvin: No! And you people are supposed to be sensitive and sharp?
***
Melvin: I can't get back to my old life. She's evicted me from my life!
Simon: Did you really like it all that much?
