As Good as it Gets IMDB
- Cast: Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear
Director:
James L. Brooks
Categories: Comedy Drama, Romance
Rated: PG13
Running Time:
138 minutes
Synopsis
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 Metropolitian Museum
of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
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