Melvin’s Queer Neighbour
The first hour of As Good As It Gets does a wonderful job in establishing its characters though I’ve not touched much on Melvin’s neighbour Simon. He’s an artist, a successful painter judging by the apartment he keeps, and a homosexual. Though his occupation and his sexuality are the brunt of his character in the first half of the film, we get a sense he’s a man who admires the humanity in others and is thus too quick to trust. A big reason for his depression is many of the people in his life abandoned him after his assault. Sometimes people are less than we assume them to be. His friction with Melvin is founded on the basis that Melvin is perhaps the only person, other than his father, that Simon can see no humanity in. However, I think its Simon’s propensity to capture the goodness in people that gives the audience a true barometer of Melvin’s progression.
It’s looking after Simon’s dog Verdell that first cracks Melvin’s shell. Upon returning him, Melvin misses the dog so much he visits a depressed Simon just to see Verdell. “Look at the face they left you,” Melvin says upon seeing Simon’s wounded face. Simon asks Melvin to take it easy, and Melvin actually obliges. He also agrees to walk Verdell until Simon can. After a returning Verdell from a walk, Simon, furiously depressed, demands him to leave. “You’re a disgrace to depression!” is Melvin’s idea of giving Simon a boost (it’s also demonstrative of Melvin narcissism when it comes to suffering), and Melvin’s comments drive Simon to lurch from his wheelchair and punches Melvin. Melvin still tries to give him a boost. He explains Verdell doesn’t prefer Melvin due to affection, but because he keeps bacon in his pocket. Simon holds out the bacon yet Verdell goes to Melvin and starts licking his face. “Can you leave now? Please?” Simon says, and Brooks’ keeps the camera tight on both Verdell and Melvin. The dog who plays Verdell looks so sad in this moment…a great canine performance!
Thugs stole his face, the hospital stole his money, landlords were taking his apartment, and now his horrible neighbour stole his dog’s heart: Simon is at rock bottom through no fault of his own.
A Waitress, a Homosexual, and a Misanthropic Romance Novelist Get Into a Car…
“Carol the Waitress, Simon the Fag,” Melvin says as he introduces his road trip mates to each other. It’s a funny line that shows how Melvin assigns roles to the people in his life. It’s interesting to note by this point in the film, the word fag doesn’t seem as harsh as his earlier comments about homosexuality. It’s as if the viewer has grown accustomed to Melvin and it instead of pulling anger and offense out of you, we say “Oh, that Melvin!”
With the motley crew on the way to Baltimore, Simon is monopolizing Carol’s attention, and Melvin is unimpressed. Carol pulls over so Simon can really pour his heart out, and Melvin engages in a pity contest about his father to regain Carol’s attention. Melvin sits in the back, totally unimpressed, but he lets Simon talk. Melvin sees nothing pitiable about the story, but his eye brows rise above his sunglasses and his gaze slowly focuses on Simon as he explains how his father beat the shit out of him. This was a big moment for Melvin in terms of empathy. You can’t see Melvin’s eyes, but you know he’s feeling for Simon here, at the very least relating to him. Simon and Melvin had very similar childhoods in terms of their parental influence. Simon must see a lot of his father in Melvin and was an unconscious source of his animosity toward Melvin, especially when he drops the homophobic insults.
We see jealousy in Melvin’s face when Carol kisses her hand and touches Simon’s face. He wanted that to be him. Melvin doesn’t want to lose ground in the misery contest, so he puts them all on an even field with famous speech:
You can see in their faces, especially in Simon’s, that they agree with him. This is Melvin expressing his entire outlook on the world. Everyone had it better than Melvin: he’s the pinnacle of human suffering, and he needs everyone to know it. But in the backseat of that car, I think Melvin is humbled somewhat, but he acts the same. This was a big bonding moment for all three of these characters. Simon earned some genuine sympathy. Melvin developed some empathy for Simon. And Carol established a strong bond with Simon. It establishes what’s to come in the rest of the film. Melvin takes a jab at Simon’s tale of misery and feels in control again. However, there is a marked lessening in his usual acerbic manner of knocking others down. He’s almost, dare I say…becoming human?
The Compliment
After talking to Spencer, who is feeling well enough to play soccer, Carol is overjoyed and wants to go dancing. With Simon wanting to stay in, Melvin is her date. And the date gets off to an auspicious start when he doesn’t match the minimum dress code for the restaurant, so he rushes out to buy a new tie and jacket. Carol is at the bar, sees him, and gives him a big warm smile before meeting him at their table.
Carol: You want to dance?
Melvin: I’ve been thinking about that since you brought it up before.
Carol (beginning to stand): And?
Melvin: No.
This sets up the narrative of this entire scene. Carol wants to be wooed. Carol wants to have a special night out. Carol wants some romance, even with Melvin. She gives Melvin a window and he smashes the glass. Can Melvin be more clueless? Yes, actually. In his next breath, he complains that the restaurant made him go out and buy a new outfit and they let her in wearing a house dress. Melvin is nailing some boards over that broken window now. What a buffoon!
Before I continue, I want to talk about Carol’s dress. I mentioned in part one how Melvin’s attraction to Carol may be entangled with Oedipal desires. Nicholson was 60 when he made As Good As It Gets but his age in the film isn’t made clear. I assume he’s probably supposed to be around 50, which would mean being at the front of the baby boom. Her dress is reminiscent of 1950’s house dress, the type of dress his mother might have worn when he was very young. Now, I’m not saying Melvin has wanted to bone his mom for 40+ years. I’m saying whatever womanly, loving qualities he may have idealized in his unconscious may all stem back to some idyllic image of his mother, a time where he may have been last happy or felt loved. Now, I could be reading too much into this, but clothing decisions in films are often deliberate, and the look of her dress simply can’t be coincidence.
Melvin pummeled Carol’s feelings, but she promises she won’t walk out on him, but she needs a compliment. And we get one of the classic exchanges of the 90’s. It’s timeless, if you ask me.
A moment later she’s moved over to the seat next to him. She kisses him. She’s officially wooed at this point while his ‘soft little underbelly is all exposed’. She wants to know why he asked her to come, the real reason he should’ve said earlier instead the ‘Simon’s stiff one eye’ excuse. “Tell me even if you’re scared.” She wants to hear him say it. “If you ask me,” she says. “I’ll say yes.” Melvin is flustered. You can see his mind racing. All his defenses are gone. He’s terrified, mortified. You know he wishes he could fast forward to the moment after he said the right thing and reap the benefits. Instead, he says something that nukes all the romantic tension that had built up in this scene, in a way that only Melvin could, by saying he thought that…maybe if she had sex with Simon…
It was the thought that came out first, one of many, which is no doubt true for Melvin. I don’t think he has much in the way of a mental filter. But he was vulnerable and terrified and his defense mechanism is clear by now: wound or be wounded. In the end, the greatest compliment of Carol’s life only served to delay her walking out on him by mere minutes, and wounding her worse than the first comment. It's now we begin to see Melvin's striving to be a better man may be hopeless.
For Emergency Use Only
The next sequence of the film doesn’t really pertain to Melvin at all, and I assume if you’ve read this far, you’ve seen the film. So we know that Simon draws Carol nude (maybe Carol is a motherly influence to Simon too, considering his mother also posed nude for him). Simon is again inspired to draw and create art, and Carol gets the romance and affection she needed. And then Melvin enters Simon’s room.
Melvin: Did you have sex with her?
Carol walks out of the bathroom.
Melvin: I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was still here. Did you have sex with her?
Carol: To hell with sex! It was better than sex. What I need he gave me great.
It’s hilarious that Melvin bringing up the idea of Carol having sex with Simon as some solution to some indeterminable problem in his insane mind is what drove Carol to Simon, and it enrages Melvin with jealousy. And though Carol and Simon don’t have sex, it seemed she actually was a solution to some indeterminable problem as Simon seems to have a new zeal for life. “One night with me!” Carol says in front of a jealous Melvin.
On the road back to New York, Melvin informs Simon they sublet his place, and he’s practically gloating that Simon is now homeless in a tone that says “Still in a good mood?” And then he breaks out the music tape FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY. The song is supposed to say everything to Carol that Melvin was too cowardly to say himself, meaning he expected to fuck up, and she immediately tells him to shut it off. Back in the city, Melvin tries to fandangle a moment alone with Carol by dropping Simon off first, but she refuses the ride home. “I don’t think I want to know you anymore,” she says to Melvin before leaving.
Evicted From His Life
Nearing the climax of the film, we’re left wondering how Melvin can possibly still redeem himself. Carol just said to remove himself from her life. As much as the audience may have been rooting for Melvin at times, it seems he’s a lost cause by this point.
Only then do we find out Melvin has set a room in his apartment up for Simon. Simon is overwhelmed. It’s a truly sweet moment not because of the gesture, but because we know Melvin. Melvin is self-absorbed. And yet in between scenes, while on this trip, while trying to romance Carol, and while failing to romance Carol, he’d found time to arrange with Frank to move all of Simon’s things into his apartment. My theory is he did it after hearing Simon’s story in the car.
So what does this say about Melvin? It says he’s capable of grand gestures, or surprising people: of being generous. It says he’s less self-absorbed than he is or we thought him to be (or that the pills are working), and that behind all the locked doors and malicious jabs there exists a warm heart, or one capable of warmth, at the very least. And now the romance novels begin to make sense. But there is one more thing. No one has ever been in his apartment except for him, and Verdell. Now he has strangers entering his apartment while he’s out of town? Including a black man? What? That’s a big testimony in terms of Melvin's redemption.
Simon tells Melvin he loves him, and Melvin delivers a classic line, ‘I tell ya, buddy. I’d be the happiest guy in the world if that did it for me.”
Later that night, Carol calls and Simon tells her Melvin took him in. She apologizes to Melvin for saying what she said earlier, and that despite all the romantic moments, he just bothers her too much and he’s bad for her to be around; all he does is make her feel bad about herself.
After learning the phone call went bad, Simon goes into full Melvin mode as Melvin complains about Carol evicting him from his life (Imagine unironically not giving Verdell the credit here, Melvin…). There is a lot of great dialogue in this scene that truly cements the drastic changes in both of these characters and how they relate to each other now:
This scene is where we see the barometer of Melvin’s change become truly visible. Everything Melvin did for Simon since that very first scene with the hurtful, homophobic comments, when Simon said Melvin doesn’t love anything…Simon’s mind has officially changed. He knows Melvin loves Carol. He wants Melvin to love Carol. “Don’t you see where you’re lucky?” He says to Melvin. “You know who you want.” Simon then gives Melvin some tough love, essentially calling him a pussy and a crybaby and delivers a rousing half-time locker room pep talk.
But on the way out to see Carol, Melvin halts, bewildered. He’d forgotten to the lock the door. The symbolism here is overt and some would even say heavy-handed, but that door has been a symbol the entire film. When Simon’s fired housekeeper knocks on his door earlier in the film, he opens the door, only a little. When she asks if he’ll walk Verdell, Melvin shoves the door open all the way, his face lights up and he smiles ear to ear. Of course, she isn’t welcome so he slams the door in her face, but that was an unconscious gesture to the audience. The door represents Melvin’s ultimate defense against the world, thus why he has five padlocks on it. The symbolism is simple: Melvin has opened himself up, or, more practically, he’s let people into his apartment, eradicating his fortress of solitude. The locks cannot protect him anymore. Nah, that’s all poppycock. The real reason he forgot to lock the door was because the pills are working. Oh, don’t you hate when Occam’s Razor ruins the fun?
Warm Rolls
The biggest hurdle with truly capturing Melvin Udall in writing such as this, is all the minutiae in the character and the nuances in Nicholson’s performance. There is so much in a look, or the way he moves his hands, or the way he clears his throat on the phone right in Carol’s ear. To truly appreciate Melvin Udall, you must appreciate Nicholson’s performance. And that’s something that doesn’t translate to the written word. There is so much contextual nuance in what he says and how he says it. And since the last two scenes involving Carol and Melvin have too much said and too much meaning behind what is said, I’m not even going to try because I could easily write another 2,000 words on them alone. So consider this my closing argument, with tangential asides to the closing scenes.
Actually, I first want to touch on the interjection of Carol’s mother in Melvin and Carol’s conversation in the stairwell of her duplex.
Carol: Why can’t I just have a normal boyfriend? Someone who doesn’t go nuts on me?
Evelyn: Everybody wants that dear – it doesn’t exist.
I love that line.
Anyway, Melvin convinces her to go for a walk because her apartment floor is full of cracks. He says there’s a bakery around the corner that might be open soon…then walking at 4 am isn’t strange, they’d just be two people who love warm rolls.
On the way, he successfully doles out a compliment that surpasses his compliment from the restaurant and expressed what he couldn’t in the restaurant. They kiss, and then they kiss again, and they walk off in a delightful shot with Carol on the cracked pavement, and Melvin on the crack-free pavement, but the bakery lights turn on and stops them. “Warm rolls,” Carol says. When entering the bakery, an employee steps through the door and Melvin steps back to let him through, stepping on a crack. Melvin looks at his foot. And then enters the bakery.
The idea of stepping on cracks is a superstition about bad luck. The rhyme “step on a crack and break your mother’s back” though, I believe, is the cause of his superstition. I truly think whatever his relationship with his mother plays a huge role in Melvin’s attraction to Carol, and if that’s the case, then the crack superstition could be born out of fear of harming his mother, or, more accurately, the image of her he carries around in his irrational mind. And if I’m right on this theory (being right doesn’t really matter, to be fair) then whatever emotional void Carol had just filled for Melvin rendered the superstition null and void. He no longer needs to obsessively hold onto some feeling of a time he might have felt loved, because he felt loved now, from Carol, from Simon, from Verdell; and I think he is beginning to love himself as well. All the other characters noticed the change in Melvin, except for Melvin himself, until that moment. He could rationalize forgetting to lock his door due to having a lot on his mind. But the crack? He had to accept his progress as the film comes to a close.
As Good As It Gets?
Melvin winning Carol back is supposed to be the moment of redemption for Melvin. But what if he isn’t supposed to be redeemed by the film’s end? The title of the film is incredibly important here. At the end of this movie, what if that is as good as it gets for Melvin? What if a fleeting stab at romance and a temporary roommate/friendship is the very best Melvin achieve? How long until he stops taking the pills? How long until he says something he can’t come back from? How long until Melvin becomes Melvin again? Healing from mental illnesses is a process that is two steps forward, one step back. So is this as good as it gets for Melvin? Is there a happy ending after this hopeful ending? Genre conventions pulled Melvin along to the end of the film, but it’s only the beginning for Melvin. Did Melvin become a better man? For the moment: yes. For good? We, the jury, are still out on that. But the inspiring part of the film is that he’s trying to be a better person. And isn’t that all anyone of us can do?
As Good As It Gets challenges the viewers to be empathetic to Melvin. When you strip away all the horrible things he says, you’re left with a lonely, mentally ill man, who feels powerless to be anything other than what he is. So when the credits roll, you, the viewer, might have unresolved feelings. Did you want to see Carol fall in love with him or not? Did you want Melvin to be happy? Did the idea of Melvin having a happy ending feel like an undeserved cop out?
As the audience was leaving the theatre, I wonder what their individual takes were. Did they consider the end to be romantic and perfect? Did they feel the ending was unearned? Did they find Melvin too detestable to deserve to get the girl? Did they feel Carol deserved better than Melvin or she was insane for even contemplating a relationship with him? Were they happy Melvin found some measure of happiness? Did they wind up inspired or dig deeper into cynicism? Were they terrified Melvin might one day send poor Simon on a ride down the chute and abscond with Verdell? (I know I was!) How many films out there have the potential for an entire audience to walk away with such vastly different feelings in terms of how things turn out for Melvin and Carol?
That’s what makes Melvin such a fascinating character. Through him, we reveal so much about ourselves. He reveals the scope of our empathy, our degree of compassion, and what we’re willing to forgive and what we’re not. He embodies our most boorish behaviors and speaks the things many of us would never even admit to thinking. But he also embodies the qualities of ourselves we wish we could change, the behaviors we feel powerless to control, and the fears which have a hand in every poor choice we make. Like it or not, Melvin represents the worst of ourselves, and the best of ourselves.
In my writing, I’ve always had a fascination with unlikeable protagonists. They’re more interesting to me, and more challenging. It’s easy to make your audience feel empathy for a good person. It’s much harder for them to make them feel empathy. Melvin Udall, among other unlikeable lead characters (I’m looking at you, Mavis Gary), has influenced how I approach writing a lead character. And If I don’t succeed with making you empathize with them, maybe you’ll enjoy seeing them get theirs! That’s what we in the game call a win/win.
So what did you first think about Melvin? Has your opinion of him changed on repeated viewings of the film? Do you think him and Carol and can live happily ever after, even for a little while? Or are they just two people who love warm rolls?