As good as it gets — that’s the way it seems these days

by James Norton

I was uncharacteristically lounging around the house the other day, when I happened upon the 1997 movie “As Good As It Gets” starring Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear (Nicholson and Hunt won Oscars for their roles and Kinnear was nominated). I enjoyed it on so many levels, I felt compelled to share them with you—the sacred reader of my tome (what a dork).

Some people dismissed this movie from the start— assuming that it was yet another “Jack” film where “Jack” would just be “Jack” and the watcher would be “Jacked” out of $6.50 (remember—it’s 7 years ago—prices were a little cheaper than today). What was reality was that the actors acted and gave stunning performances in their roles.

Nicholson has certain mannerisms he has acquired over the years which gave a certain smarminess to his Melvin Udall character that couldn’t have been duplicated by any other actor alive other than the late great Tony Randall.

This is a complex character of the highest order. The irony built-in to the whole Melvin Udall as a very successful romance novelist is pure genius. Melvin suffers from extreme obsessive compulsive disorder and is trapped in the insanity that this type of mental disorder snowballs out of control. Melvin avoids touching anyone, uses plastic utensils, sits in the same booth at the same restaurant eating the same food every day—day after day. He avoids cracks in the sidewalk and locks and relocks his door repeatedly and with purpose.

There’s a lot more to that character and to the other characters and the subplots, and the mastery of the screenplay, blah, blah, blah—this isn’t a review, it’s me ramping up to why it struck me as so damned funny the other day, silly. I’m rambling about the Melvin Udall character because I suffer from a mental disorder known as Bi-Polar Disorder, more commonly known as Manic Depression. It’s a wicked disease that has many layers of special problems associated with it—including—alcohol and drug abuse, violent behavior, medication noncompliance and a whole bunch more I’d rather not get into. It is now understood that this type of disorder, along with a long list of other disorders and anxieties, stem from chemical imbalances inside the brain.

Typically medication is used to bring about some sort of normalcy to the sufferer, and it can be quite the experience finding the right pharmacology for any one person, as we all suffer differently. I guess I am lucky— after my bout with doctors and going through therapy and different drugs, I have found a few non-medical things that I do that keep me in balance without the aid of any scripts—I can’t stand medications (ok, I didn’t hate them when I would wash down a handful of blue Xanax pills with a big swig of Jack Daniels—but that’s a different story for another issue).

I went from a movie right into a mental disorder and ended up alluding to my own depraved drug abuse—what’s my point? I really am insane in the membrane, aren’t I? My point is that I laughed because all people who have anxieties or OCD or other types of disorders have routines—I myself have a whole bunch that I barely even notice during the course of any normal day. Seeing a parallel to the Melvin character in the movie made me laugh because I have been known to snap at my share of people in a nasty tone, much like Melvin does in the movie. I do it to disarm people and push them away—just like Melvin does throughout the movie.

The best example of this kind of mannerism is when a fan of Melvin’s asks him “How do you write about women so well?” to which he retorts instantly: “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability”. Brilliant. Not because it’s true—it really isn’t, I swear (wink). I laughed so hard, I could feel….okay, let’s just say I laughed pretty hard. Have you heard the one about why a man never has to buy a woman a watch? Oh-oh, I better go before I really get myself into trouble.