Touching or Tragic?

Rating: 9/10 (24 February 1999)

Are we bothered at the end of the film that nothing is really resolved between Melvin and Carol? Melvin will still be an obsessive compulsive and Carol will still be taking midnight trips to the hospital with Spencer. I find that to be an incredibly tragic element to the film. The fact that both characters found each other is touching, but Brooks structures it to show us that while there are happy endings, there's still reality.
The brilliance of the film also lies within the simple fact that this is not a comedy. While Nicholson has many snappy one-liners and insult jokes at the expense of Greg Kinnear's Simon, the film is still as tragic and as deep as one of Shakespeare's sonnets. When Nicholson learns that Verdell is to be taken away from him, he's lost something that he has grown attached to and for a man in his position, it is loss at the deepest level. Verdell represents harmony for Melvin. Melvin is in harmony with the world when Verdell is around. There is a kinship between Verdell and Melvin that is quite lovely, but also quite tragic. As the film progresses, Carol represents harmony, thus their strong relationship emerges. Both Melvin and Carol are two lost souls searching not for the right answers, but for a place to start the search for the right answers.