Review of As Good as It Gets (1997) by Van R — 25 Dec 2009

AS GOOD AS IT GETS ranks as the best Jack Nicholson movie in ages, and it is a pretty nutty comedy, too. Considering the crap that Nicholson has appeared in lately, AS GOOD AS IT GETS is easily the most memorable film that he has starred in since the 1980s.

Talk about stinkers and sinkers, specifically BLOOD & WINE, MARS ATTACKS, THE CROSSING GUARD, WOLF, and HOFFA, were as disposable as they were objectionable. Top heavy with multi-dimensional characters, AS GOOD AS IT GETS generates its crisp plot from the recurring collisions that occur between flaky characters.

Uneven, often predictable, but consistently entertaining, AS GOOD AS IT GETS unspools like a long, leisurely situation comedy. BROADCAST NEWS writer & director James L. Brooks spices up this superlative comedy with several politically incorrect one-liners and charms some scintillating performances from both Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear.

The cutest performance belongs to a scene-stealing pooch, an adorable Brussels Griffon doggie that resembles a STAR WARS Ewok. Mark Andrus co-scripted AS GOOD AS IT GETS with Brooks. The plot details the back and forth relationships between two Manhattan apartment dwellers, novelist Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson of FIVE EASY PIECES) and gay painter Simon Bishop (Greg Kinnear of SABRINA) and woebegone waitress Carol Connelly (Helen Hunts of WHAT WOMEN WANT), a single-parent mom who befriends Bishop but spars constantly with Udall.

Brooks and Andrus take their time laying out and setting up the action about two guys, a girl and a dog. At times, AS GOOD AS IT GETS seems indulgently slow, but the characters and their dialogue are rewarding and the ending is definitely worth the waiting.

While Brooks and Andrus are developing their storyline, they criticize HMOs, debunk homosexuality, and invigorate a moth-eaten May/December romance with a gutsy vitality that most mainstream Hollywood movies eschew.