As Good as It Gets (1997)
Directed by James L. Brooks
A misanthropic author, a single mother and waitress, and a gay artist form an unlikely friendship after the artist is assaulted in a robbery.
8 connections found
View:
8 films that influenced As Good as It Gets
What critics say influenced As Good as It Gets
Intimately concerned with the embarrassment and difficulty of constant repositioning and mutual readjustments and with all the ethical issues that arise from this activity--the same sort of issues that abound in the films of Leo McCarey (such as My Son John and An Affair to Remember) and Vincente Minnelli (such as The Cobweb and The Band Wagon)--these interactions are the mother lode that all of Brooks's features have been searching for.
Intimately concerned with the embarrassment and difficulty of constant repositioning and mutual readjustments and with all the ethical issues that arise from this activity--the same sort of issues that abound in the films of Leo McCarey (such as My Son John and An Affair to Remember) and Vincente Minnelli (such as The Cobweb and The Band Wagon)--these interactions are the mother lode that all of Brooks's features have been searching for.
Intimately concerned with the embarrassment and difficulty of constant repositioning and mutual readjustments and with all the ethical issues that arise from this activity--the same sort of issues that abound in the films of Leo McCarey (such as My Son John and An Affair to Remember) and Vincente Minnelli (such as The Cobweb and The Band Wagon)--these interactions are the mother lode that all of Brooks's features have been searching for.
Having a back story implies that achieving peace of mind entails coming to terms with one's past, as Simon eventually does--the therapeutic model for dealing with neurosis in most conventional Freudian or post-Freudian Hollywood movies, from Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound to Albert Brooks's Mother.
Advertisement
The irony should not be lost on the fact that David Fincher's Mank, a dramatized feature about the writing of one of Orson Welles's greatest films, Citizen Kane (1941), is being released by the streaming giant Netflix.
There's plenty of material right inside that thumbnail characterization from which Nicholson and the audience can move into innumerable different directions; Melvin lends himself equally well to a serious character study, a broad farce, or a sort of reverse My Fair Lady where someone, most likely a sharp-tongued woman, can pull him out of his coarse, asocial husk.
Science is an all-consuming passion for Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis: As Good as It Gets ).
Like last year's "Mother" by Albert Brooks, "As Good as It Gets" is both funny and poignant, sarcastic and tender.
Having a back story implies that achieving peace of mind entails coming to terms with one's past, as Simon eventually does--the therapeutic model for dealing with neurosis in most conventional Freudian or post-Freudian Hollywood movies, from Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound to Albert Brooks's Mother.