as good as it gets

This Is ﾒAs Good As It Getsﾓ

BY AYANO SASAKI and HITOMI SATO

To meet someone might change oneﾕs life. Melvin (Jack Nicholson) the leading actor of this Academy-Award-winning movie must have felt this way watching this movie, we were impressed by the importance of meeting people.

In the film, Melvin is a popular love story novelist. His novels are full of warm words. But he is a solitary person who doesnﾕt show any evidence of a tender heart. He is a perfectionist. He always sits at the same seat in the restaurant where he always eats dinner. He always brings his own knife and folk for fear of germs. He walks along avoiding cracks in the sidewalk. He seems to think that all things imperfect are dirty.

ﾒAs Good As It Getsﾓ is a love comedy about a man who tries to change himself when he comes in contact with a person, a woman, he is in love with.

Simon who is a gay lives next to Melvin. One day, Melvin takes care of Simonﾕs dog, Verdel. He has kept people away, and kept every living thing away from his room. At first he rejects Verdel. But Verdel gets into Melvinﾕs bed with a cute look wagging his tail, so he gradually begins to feel relaxed being with Verdel. Melvin shows Verdel his true mind for the first time. He becomes aware of thoughtfulness for people and he begins to get acquainted with Simon.

Afterwards, he notices that he has strong feelings for Carol, a waitress at the restaurant. But he canﾕt follow his feelings, because once he accepts his feelings, he must deny his whole life. His character is such that he canﾕt explain himself well and he makes their relationship worse. The relationship between Melvin and Carol is very delicate in this movie. He rejects friendship with others by using offensive words because he is afraid of being hurt. At heart he seems not to be a mean man.

As the story progresses, we can see that he is actually bashful and clumsy at meeting people, but he is not really a strange person. He has a sharp tongue but, when he falls in love with Carol, his words lose their energy and he loses his composure. He has never been troubled in the past but now he is at a loss for the first time. At first he doesnﾕt notice what make him upset and why he can not sleep. Simon encourages Melvin who is so worried. Verdel, Simonﾕs dog, mediated his new relationship with Simon and his neighbors. In time, He accepts the feelings he has for Carol and tries to change himself. Carol also gets to know his character. But the distance between the two canﾕt be closed easily. Their relationship drives viewers up the wall, and makes this story the more interesting.

This year, Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt won the Academy Awards for the Leading Actor and Actress for their performances.

They never bore the audience. Jack Nicholson especially expresses the change in Melvinﾕs heart very well.

Seeing this movie, we realized that it is difficult for a person to tell his or her feelings to others. No one likes to be hurt. And many people avoid relationships with others. This way of thinking creates an obstacle to communication when people are in love. Recently, it seems that many people do not know their neighbors. Maybe we tend to be cowardly about love. We learn this lesson affectionately in ﾒAs Good As It Gets.ﾓ