Hope Davis

Hope Davis played Jeannie, daughter of the retired actuary Jack Nicholson plays, in Alexander Payne's About Schmidt, from 2002. Assessing the film, Xan Brooks counted Davis one of its supporting parts and called the cast as a whole a mixed bag, inadequately drawn, the description falling to Davis running to two adjectives, a cold and calculating daughter. His objection was not to the acting but to the condition of the characters: these supporting figures look less like people in their own right, on his reading, than like projections of Schmidt's own unhappiness. Out of that cast he exempted only Kathy Bates from the charge.