History Film / AboutSchmidt

* BlatantLies: Just when it seems like Warren is going to let loose ("You wanna know what I really think? What I ''really'' think?"), he chickens out and just blandly praises people that disgust him.

** After sorting through the possessions of his late wife, Warren discovers love letters proving that his wife and his best friend had an affair.
** After his wife's funeral, his daughter Jeannie berates Warren for buying a cheap coffin and gives a long TheReasonYouSuck speech about how Warren treated his wife.

** When Warren sets off on his road trip, Jeannie tells him that he isn't welcome at her home until the day before the wedding.
** Warren finally feels that he can bare his soul to somebody he met - a married woman in a camper who had invited him over for dinner. Unfortunately, his response is to make a pass at her while her husband is out buying beer, something she's less than happy about.

* PyramidScheme: Randall (Jeannie's fiancee and Warren's anticipated son-in-law) tries to hook Warren into an investment opportunity. Warren, being an actuary familiar with poor investments that carry risk and uncertainty, is skeptical of joining and waits until he is at a table having dinner with others associated with Randall to ask why didn't Randall ever announce his investment was successful. Randall's brother Duncan angrily admits it was a pyramid scheme and it cost him $800. This confirms Warren's suspicions were for the wiser, and Randall poorly tries weaseling out with InsaneTrollLogic that [[NeverMyFault he only lost money because his recruits lost money]] [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial and that their recruits failed to find more recruits]].

* {{Manchild}}: Larry, and an elderly one at that. He is even called a "little boy" by his ex-wife Roberta for throwing tantrums, giving such unnecessary redundant speeches, and yelling for Roberta like she's his mother.
** Randall is basically a forty year old teenager.

* BelievingTheirOwnLies: There's a large disconnect between the reality of Warren's life and his description of it in his letters to Ndugu. Some examples of these include his stating that his daughter has a position of great importance at an electronics firm (in fact she's a shipping clerk), claiming that his former colleagues are in constant need of his advice and assistance even after his retirement (in fact, they almost immediately discarded his research archive and want nothing to do with him), and that he's keeping his house in perfect order after his wife's death (the place turned into a pig sty in a matter of weeks). It's strongly implied that Warren is deluding himself into believing these lies as much as he's trying to mislead Ndugu.

** Warren's letters to Ndugu are filled with stories and claims with little if any foundation in reality.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: The Hertzl family. The name is Jewish, and in the novel the main reason Warren despises Randall is that he doesn't want his daughter marrying a Jewish person. Their Jewishness isn't mentioned at all in the film (in fact, Roberta talks about Christmas gifts and vacations), nor is there any evidence that Warren has any ethnic prejudice against them or any other group of people, he simply dislikes them personally.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: The Hertzl family. The name is Jewish, and in the novel the main reason Warren despises Randall is that he doesn't want his daughter marrying a Jewish person. Their Jewishness isn't mentioned at all in the film (in fact, Roberta talks about Christmas gifts and vacations), nor is there any evidence that Warren has any ethnic prejudice against them, he simply dislikes them personally.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Played with in Warren's relationship with his wife Helen. While the two are shown to have DeadSparks by the beginning of the movie, with Warren lamenting in his first letter to Ndugu about how he has grown to despise every little thing about her and [[spoiler: Helen being revealed to have had a brief affair decades earlier]], she is never anything worse than somewhat of a nag to him and their marriage is, if nothing else, stable. After Helen's untimely passing, Warren is immediately filled with guilt and regret about the way he spoke of her in his letter and it quickly becomes apparent just how much she did for him in their day to day lives. The love may have faded from their relationship over time, but it was still there right up to the end.

* BittersweetEnding: It's either this, or a TearJerker. Is Schmidt holding on to the letter from Ndugu's caretaker as a last resort, or is it genuinely worth sticking around for?

* {{Manchild}}: Larry, an elderly {{manchild}} at that. He is even called a "little boy" by his ex-wife Roberta for throwing tantrums, giving such unnecessary redundant speeches, and yelling for Roberta like she's his mother.

* ManlyTears: Warren himself at the end.

Schmidt is trying to come to terms with the prospect of spending his last remaining years on Earth with his boring, nagging wife. Out of boredom, he decides to sponsor a child in Tanzania, to whom he writes letters about how much his life sucks now. One of the few things that keeps him going is his daughter Jeannie (Creator/HopeDavis), who is about to get married to a dimwitted waterbed salesman named Randall (Creator/DermotMulroney), who also turns out to be a {{jerkass}} [[ConMan pyramid scheme]] [[DumbCrooks recruiter]].

* DownerEnding: Narrowly averted in the end, when Schmidt receives a letter from his foster child.

* FirstWorldProblems: Everything in the whole movie Schmidt complains about counts, especially in comparison to what his pen pal Ndugu is suffering back in Tanzania such as dysentery and malnutrition.

* InnocentlyInsensitive: Roberta. She tells Warren that Helen ("And I ''mean'' Helen") was very fortunate to avoid becoming busy prepping the party and ceremony for Jeannie and Randall's wedding. Helen ''died'' before the preparations could be finished. Warren isn't amused by her joking of his dead wife at all.

* StepfordSmiler: Warren becomes after the wedding, meekly giving a phony speech about how happy he is with the new son-in-law.

** Also the fumbling attempt of him trying to persuade his daughter not to marry her fiance. Yes Warren, you are right, but you don't have to be such of an ass. Though don't forget, his daughter is wanting to marry a loser water-bed salesman who tried to bait a [[Ponzi ''pyramid scheme'']] on a man who just lost his wife.

** Also the fumbling attempt of him trying to persuade his daughter not to marry her fiance. Yes Warren, you are right, but you don't have to be such of an ass. Though don't forget, his daughter is wanting to marry a loser water-bed salesman who baits a ''pyramid scheme'' on innocent people.

* SpoiledBrat: Jeannie seems to go through life with a sense of entitlement - she doesn't want to have much to do with her father except to criticize him and put him down, but is more than happy to take Warren's money for her wedding and to make other demands of him when she needs something.

* DespairEventHorizon: The entire film is Warren starting at a Despair Event Horizon, and slowly getting worse. Creator/RogerEbert noted that the film was the embodiment of the idiom by Creator/HenryDavidThoreau, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," later saying in the review that the film "is not about a man who goes on a journey to find himself, because there is no one to find." Warren learns that he isn't becoming a special someone that the magazines write about. The climax of his despair is Warren's speech just before receiving the letter.

-->'''Ebert:''' ''About Schmidt'' is essentially a portrait of a man without qualities, baffled by the emotions and needs of others.

* AnAesop: You can still matter to ''some''body.

** There was a scene which parodied a famous scene from Five Easy Pieces that test audiences loved. But since it was a role WAY different from any we associate with Jack Alexander Payne decided to cut it.

** Warren's letters to Ndugu are filled with stories and claims with little if any basis in reality. For instance, Warren says that his daughter has a position of great importance with an electronics corporation, when in fact she's a shipping clerk. He isn't so much lying to deceive Ndugu as to deceive himself.

* TranquilFury: Warren is told (accurately) that after the death of his wife, he isn't mourning or sad - he's angry, at the whole world.

* ThisLoserIsYou: Warren's situation in life is quite relatable to many individuals who achieved outward success materially but completely failed to find much meaning in what they did, and who discovered later and life that their own family members and friends may as well have been strangers.

* {{Manchild}}: Larry, an elderly {{manchild}} at that. He is even called a "little boy" by his ex-wife Roberta for throwing tantrums, giving such unnecessary redundant speeches, and yelling for Roberta like she's his mother. Randall is also a permanent adolescent.