About Schmidt: Character Study Of Warren Schmidt

About Schmidt is an intricate character study of a 66 year old man, Warren Schmidt, who falls into the abyss of retirement and widowhood with denouement for temporality, stability and purpose of life and slowly regaining it back by getting in touch with his inner self. His salvation comes inadvertently, through a one-way series of letters he writes to a disadvantaged orphan in Tanzania.

As the movie begins we see saddened Warren Schmidt, sitting in his office chair with files filled with his legacy of business acumen packed and boxed in background. After retirement as an actuary for the Woodman of the World Insurance Company, Schmidt is left with nothing but time on his empty hands. Another scene shows him suffering through a meaningless retirement dinner along with his wife. His wife, Helen tries cheering him up by surprising him with breakfast in the in his 35 foot Winnebago Adventurer that they bought together to use in his retirement, but he seems least interested. It clearly showed that he is the kind of man lacking intellectual curiosity, evading family conflicts and defining himself by work only. Schmidt is left completely displaced, living a life without a meaning or purpose.

This seemed like a kind of redemption, a hope for Schmidt himself and some kind of internal salvation.

An absence of meaning in their marriage is also shown throughout the movie till his wife, Helen dies leaving Schmidt even more astonished and bereft, not at the enormity of his loss, but that he had so little to lose. Schmidt had not planned his retirement and was suffering through it each day. Throughout the movie he keeps on struggling, trying to reflect on his life with a sense of