Monday, January 12, 1997Roger Ebert hoped the movie As Good as It Gets "might go over the top into greatness". It didn’t because the movie’s "screaming and kicking all the way characters were contorted to fit them into conventional formula." These characters are Jack Nicholson as the writer Melvin Udall, Helen Hunt as the waitress Carol Connely, Greg Kinnear as gay artist Simon Bishop, Cuba Gooding Jr. as the art dealer Frank Sachs. The romance that occurs between young Carol and caustic and grouchy Melvin turns him into Santa Claus. Supposedly, this was why the comedy was released at the end of year, for Christmas. But director James Brooks approaches the film with a perspective that floats "above" the story line. It seems to be made up of excessive love and its bitter consequences.

If we follow the hidden point of view, it is easy to notice that all the characters deal with the same problem. Melvin, the writer, has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Coming from a poor place he cannot stop shunning out romance novels for women. He’s already written 62 of them and knows he is doomed to pen love novels as long as he breathes and maybe longer. Melvin’s love interest, Carol Connely, the waitress and a single mother, loves her sick son with the same kind of fear driven compulsiveness. She fears that she won’t be able to provide for her son. Simon Bishop loves his ugly/cute dog Verdell with such intensity that we suspect it comes from a painful situation in the past, too heavy for comedy. Sure enough, we later learn, Simon ‘s mother posed nude for him and when his rich father found out he threw Simon out and Simon hasn’t heard from either of them since.

At this point, the comedy turns up-side down. The story becoming a Santa Claus changes into the story of overcoming obsessions.

Melvin delivers a doctor to help Carol’s asthmatic son. The son’s health improves. But there’s more to this than meets the eye. It echoes the other story when Simon’s beloved dog Verdell falls in love with Melvin. Melvin explains that dogs love him because he carries bacon in his pocket. Simon does the trick but it doesn’t work. The dog loves Melvin not because of bacon but because of something else.

We begin to wonder if Carol’s son started to breath again when the burden of his mother’s excessive love was lifted from his shoulders. It happened when his mother’s attention shifted to Melvin. At that point, Carol received a phone message about her son’s dramatic health improvement.

Things start to shift for Simon when Simon and Carol are in a hotel room on the way to his parent’s house and Carol poses nude for him.

Melvin is a changed man, Carol is a changed woman and Simon is healed but there is one who doesn’t change. This is Frank, the art dealer. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays this role with great passion. His character’s determination to be successful refuses to be overridden by anything. An African American among the whites must be superior to feel accepted.

When Cuba Gooding has a confrontation with Jack Nicholson (over Simon’s dog Verdell) we see that they are similar. Frank mirrors Melvin. However, if Frank’s compulsiveness is incurable how can Melvin change? Melvin plays Santa Claus, romance novelist and lover, but maintains a connection with his essence which is not accountable to any other human being.

When the perestroika began in the late ‘80s, they showed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for the Soviet common men. I saw it in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. There were no advertisements on TV, or radio, or newspapers but the theaters were filled to the last seat. The movie was played over and over again from morning to night in many theaters during the month and every time all the seats were filled. People watched the movie in absolute silence, shaken by its power. It was about them because they lived in a country that looked like a big asylum. They were watched by "nurses", held in lines for food, not allowed to travel and humiliated by lack of toilet paper and soap. The entire movie was about us, and it was done by a man who knew what he was doing. Milos Forman, the director was born in Czechoslovakia, another country occupied by the Soviets.