As Good as It Gets.

Review #1516: As Good as It Gets.

Cast: 
Jack Nicholson (Melvin Udall), Helen Hunt (Carol Connelly), Greg Kinnear (Simon Bishop), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Frank Sachs), Skeet Ulrich (Vincent), Shirley Knight (Beverly Connelly), Yeardley Smith (Jackie), Lupe Ontiveros (Nora), and Jill the Dog (Verdell) Produced and Directed by James L. Brooks (#1470 - Terms of Endearment and #1485 - Broadcast News)

Review: 
"Just let the wardrobe be the character. You play yourself. That's the way you approach it."

It's easy to do a romantic comedy-drama when you have two of a kind playing against each other. Jack Nicholson was already an icon in doing a variety of outsider/anti-hero roles through a long and varied career that toiled for years in low-budget fare and writing before rising to prominence with Easy Rider (1969) and Five Easy Pieces (1970). As for Helen Hunt, she came from a family of photographers and directors and worked as a child actress from a young age. She eventually took on film with films like Trancers (1984) before reaching some success with the sitcom Mad About You in 1992. As for director Brooks, this was his fourth film venture (the first after the flop I'll Do Anything three years prior). It came about because of a script he found named Old Friends, written by Mark Andrus (who went from graduating in business from UC Riverside to creative writing, and he had his first script credit with Late for Dinner (1991) at the age of 36). Its story of a vile man and his gay neighbor had toiled around for years in limbo with various actors like Kevin Kline expressing interest. A year was spent in doing reworking of the script in changing its emphasis, but Brooks would spend considerable time experimenting when filming along with tinkering with the editing and its ending (which apparently changed five times).

As a love story of aggravation and change, it certainly has quite a strange appeal. Over the gradual pace of 139 minutes, it creaks and moves towards romance with a reluctant foot forward and a good cast to make a moderately funny piece of entertainment. It all starts with Nicholson, who is quite enjoyable in acidic misanthropy, one that is hard to resist in viewing because of how Nicholson makes the role across in compulsions and obsessions with conviction that never is sold out for cheap tricks. He can throw a dog in a chute and yet we still find ourself going along with his curious nature in what makes one the way they are and aren't. Hunt matches him with a mix of weariness and her own rediscovering of herself that makes a well-rounded performance of charm that goes quite hand-in-hand for some interesting chemistry like fire and ice when with Nicholson that doesn't seem too out of the blue for where they need to go. Kinnear accompanies the proceedings as the other piece of a trio of human frailty and wit that comes from it with a snappy Gooding Jr or brief moments of charm from Knight alongside smaller moments from folks like Harold Ramis that lend the film some breath of a capably human world trying to deal with very real miseries and quibbles that come from all facets of life, whether that means work or other stuff. The first half definitely works better than the second in setting up moments of back-and-forth between Nicholson and Hunt (along with pretty much anybody else his orbit, such as a quip about how he writes about romance), while the second half travels on the road with our trio and sticks itself in a bit of sentiment that gels adequately to try and arrange what you could (or could not) expect from its setup of exacting change in the patterns of people - if you remotely believe that our main duo can stick as a couple, then it will work out with wonders. For me, it sticks okay, but it definitely seems a bit tinkered one too many times to really separate it as a great experience, particularly with a length of 139 minutes. On the whole, the film gradually builds a human story towards romance with most of it in the right place with an absolute winning pair in Nicholson and Hunt to go along with a few good humorous moments to make something worth going for both the heart and the throat in charm.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.