As Good as It Gets

As Good as It Gets (1997) is about a novelist with obsessive compulsive disorder who likes nobody, and his relationship with his neighbours. Melvin Udall writes romance novels and insults everyone in real life. He avoids the cracks in the pavement, eats the same meal at the same table every day, and brings his own cutlery. Carol is the only waitress in that restaurant who will serve him. When his neighbour Simon is badly injured in an assault, Melvin ends up with his dog. He hates the dog. Then he starts talking to it. The film's business is not to fix the character. Melvin stays a difficult man to the end; what changes is that people need him, and that forces him to attempt things. Simon was a notable character for the period; a gay man at the centre of a film, written without being reduced to a victim. James L. Brooks directed. Jack Nicholson won best actor and Helen Hunt best actress. This is the most recent film to win both lead acting Oscars, the first since The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 and the only one since. Helen Hunt came from a television series at the time and her casting was argued over. It is long and turns into a road film in the second half. It runs 139 minutes. Good for: character comedy, the nineties, and performance. Less good for: what the lead says is continuously offensive and the film forgives him too easily.