As Good As It Gets (1997)****

Seen on 18-9-2009 - HBO movie

Cast: Jack Nicholson (Melvin Udall, the writer), Helen Hunt (Carol Connelley the waitresss), Greg Kenner (Simon, gay artist), Cuba Gooding (Frank, Black Art Dealer)
Dir. : James L. Brooks ("Terms of Endearment" fame--with similarly original and out-of-the-ordinary, weird if you prefer, people and situations)...

We thought of seeing this the second time just to know the portrayal of a writer better and it didn't turn out to be a bad idea. We enjoyed it this time too! The success of the film, we felt, is in its character conception of the writer and the script given to him....
Are writers quirky and therefore misfits among people in general? Looks more like it. Here he is more outrageously queer than the neighborhood gay artist who used his mother nude as his model. The juxtaposition of the two doesn't seem to be unintended in this film. His cynicism about people and their hackneyed responses to things prevents him from being nice and polite to them. He is a recluse by choice probably because he doesn't put a premium on the intelligence of people: he is a misanthrope. He lives a highly organized, orderly, tidy, sanitised life by living in seclusion. He is the kind who wouldn't want to risk sounding sentimental by saying the expected or by playing the role. Also, he can't bring himself to say things to please people (Why can't he tell his girl friend that he asked her out because he liked her? Instead he tells her that he meant her to kiss the queer whom they have accompanied). The result is he is misunderstood and he has the effect of being offensive. The few who come in contact with him hate him; the scene where the regular clintele of the restaurant give a standing ovation when he is shoved out of the restaurant is a measure of the extent of people's dislike of him. The one waitress who deigns to serve him barely tolerates him. He is the hard-horse hated by even those who come prepared to love him as it happens with the waitress herself. He is paranoid and pernickety in speech, in his concern with orderliness, with hygeine, and public relations. His wisecracks and witticisms aren't funny as they are meant to be. What was said of him in exasperation by the woman he is drawn to is apt perhaps: "Why can't I have a normal boyfriend?" But the point is if he is not 'normal' he is not abnormal either. How come that he is a successful writer (author of62 romance novels) when he is universally hated in real life? The plain truth he writes about love he doesn't understand and even becomes popular. In this film he has to understand what it means to care.
In the main three things happen to an overly reclusive misanthrope of a writer: first, he is forced to take care of the dog he hates, second he is drawn to a waitress much against himself and third he is forced to take in the gay neighbor thus soiling his otherwise sanitised life in his apartment. In all these events he learns to care and probably understand what it is to love. The prolific writer of romances is forced to learn caring for people and become a better man and possibly a better writer....
But the fun is all in the script written for the otherwise successful writer who is essentially a failure at the basic level as a man ("a grumpy Scrooge")....
The sheer power of the script is best summed up with the final compliment with which he wins his girlfriend: "you make me want to be a better man..."