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As Good As It Gets Customer Reviews (34 - 36 of 68 Reviews)

It's Jack Nicholson
In reviewing this movie, it's important to note the fine performance by Jack Nicholson for which he won an academy award. The issue is whether Jack Nicholson is best actor or whether the award is for best performance by an actor.The award is, in fact given for best performance. With Jack Nicholson, you get the same person in every movie but wow, he sure plays that person well. What I mean is that John Wayne played a certain type of personality, so did James Stewart and many others. They were great actors but their range was limited. They could not affect accents and play personalities far beyond those for which they were generally cast. So to with Nicholson, you are always aware that it is Nicholson playing the role and, in effect, he is bigger than the role he is playing. You never truly believe that he is the character he is playing because you can never become unaware that he is Jack Nicholson. I would contrast this with someone like Tim Robbins who can play an emotionally empty victim of childhood sexual abuse in Mystic River, an entirely different role than he played as the cocky pitcher in Bull Durham. You forget that it is Robbins and believe you are seeing the incarnation of the character he is playing.

In this movie, Nicholson is an offbeat crumudgeon (hmmm, has he ever done that before?). He is a writer named Melvin who spends most of his time in his apartment working. He lives near a gay artist and has an obsessive/compulsive need to eat at the same restaurant and be served by the same waitress every day. He is nothing short of nasty to his neighbor and he is callous and demanding to the waitress (played by Helen Hunt who also wins an Oscar). A set of circumstances arises which gets him dragooned into taking care of his neighbor's dog when the neighbor is hospitalized. He grows fond of the dog, thus gets drawn into this neighbor's life. He also get's drawn into the waitress's life when he needs to resort to extraordinary efforts to keep her working at the restaurant to satisfy his compulsion to be served at the same table, every day, by the same waitress.

Predictably enough, being drawn into the lives of others mellows Melvin. The three end up in an adventure in which they travel together to Maryland and the relationship between Melvin and the waitress devolves into a romatic comedy. Anyway, Nicholson is great as Melvin. Nicholson is perfect for the role and there's the rub. Just as John Wayne was perfect for the role of a gunslinger out west, so to Nicholson is perfect for this offbeat role. Thus, I reprise my question about an Oscar for a role that the actor is almost typecast for. Nicholson won a previous best actor Oscar for One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest. As incredibly good as he is in his roles, does he deserve a second Oscar for playing his persona spectacularly well yet again? I have no answer but, I recommend this fine movie and ask that you consider this question.

Critically acclaimed and outright hilarious!
Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, As Good As It Gets became one of the surprise blockbusters of 1997. Jack Nicholson dispenses insults with his one-in-a-billion sense of delivery, and if you like serious comedies, this is the film for you. Helen Hunt is masterful in her portrayal of a hard-luck single mother who befriends Nicholson's oddball character, and Greg Kinnear does well as the neighbor who faces hard times himself. Home to a well-written screenplay exhibiting superb direction from James L. Brooks, As Good As It Gets makes a place for itself in the annals of movie history...

Jack Nicholson stars as cranky, bitter, semi-shut-in novelist Melvin Udall who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Everyday, like clockwork, Melvin eats breakfast at the same diner where he brings his own utensils and is waited on by the same waitress (the only one who will agree to serve him), Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt). Despite his eccentricities, the two form a sort of unspoken understanding of each other. Meanwhile, Melvin's neighbor, Simon Bishop (Greg Kinnear), a homosexual artist who is often the object of Melvin's bigoted comments, entertains the elite art circles of New York. Simon's dog forms a further divide between the two when Simon drops him down the trash chute to stop his barking.

When Simon is attacked in his home and left beaten and unable to create his art, all of his friends abandon him and the bills are left unpaid. Melvin, having reluctantly agreed to take care of the dog in Simon's absence, develops an attachment for the dog. Meanwhile, Carol Connelly leaves the diner in order to better take care of her sick son. Distraught, Melvin offers to pay for treatments in order to have Carol back as his waitress once again. With each character struggling with personal tragedies, the three slowly develop a respect for each other and a friendship which only grows...

Co-stars Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt swept the leading role Oscars for the male and female categories, and their onscreen relationship is one of the more memorable in cinema history. Forming a love/hate relationship and bonding through their various travails, Melvin Udall and Carol Connelly are one of the true odd couples of tinsel town. In fact, if a cast of lesser abilities had played the roles, the film would have been a drastic failure because such relationships would simply be unbelievable. Playing the role of Melvin's gay neighbor Simon, Greg Kinnear made a name for himself and entered into the hallowed halls of the who's who of Hollywood.

With an all-star cast that includes several Academy Award winners (Cuba Gooding, Jr. won for Jerry Maguire), As Good As It Gets rests its fortunes on the backs of its quirky and sometimes neurotic band of characters. More than able to meet the task, Nicholson, Hunt, and Kinnear strike gold with this Best Picture candidate which combines drama and comedy into a unique, one-of-a-kind experience. With one-liners zinging from Nicholson in almost every scene, you'll be hard pressed not to laugh out loud. And with Kinnear and Hunt to bring a serious note to Nicholson's strange character, As Good As It Gets breaks into the ranks of a short list of all-time great films. It's one you definitely won't want to miss...

The DVD Report

This Movie Is Definitley As Good As It Gets
It's a shame that Hollywood doesn't make great films/comedies like these anymore. That's more reason to treasure a movie gem like this one. Jack Nicholson stars as a grumpy romance book author with obsessive compulsive disorder. He has taken a liking to a single waitress who is the mother of an asthmatic boy. He also starts a friendship(at first unwillingly)with his gay artist neighbor and the man's little dog. Jack begins to try to change his ways to impress the lovely waitress(Helen Hunt). The film goes through different stages of their love/hate relationship. His artist neighbor is horribly beaten up and Jack sort of takes to him, creating an odd friendship. The romance that eventually blossoms between Jack and Helen is a little questionable. Could this really happen?. The two performers are so perfect and believeable in these performances that they make you think that it is possible. Greg Kinnear as the neighbor is fantastic. He is not just the former host of "Talk Soup". What can you say about Jack?. He's the best. He deserved the Oscar he won for this. So did Helen Hunt. Her scenes crying to her mother were classic. This movie is hysterical at one moment, and then serious and romantic the next. It's a beautifully crafted and put together piece of cinema. Brilliant. See it right now!.

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