Warren sees a television advertisement about a foster program for African children, Plan USA, and decides to sponsor a child.

He soon receives an information package with a photo of his foster child, a small Tanzanian boy named Ndugu Umbo, to whom he relates his life in a series of candid, rambling letters.

He describes to Ndugu his longtime alienation from Helen, his wife, who dies from a blood clot in her brain just after their purchase of a Winnebago Adventurer motor home.

Consoling him at the funeral, she later berates him for taking his wife for granted, refusing to fully pay for the Winnebago (he wanted the cheaper model) and getting her a cheap casket.

When he discovers hidden love letters disclosing Helen's long-ago affair with Ray, a mutual friend, Schmidt collects all her possessions and dumps them unceremoniously next to a clothing donations bin.

Deciding to take a journey in the new Winnebago to visit his daughter and convince her not to marry Randall, he tells her he is coming early for the wedding.

She makes it clear she does not want him there until right before the ceremony, so Schmidt visits places from his past, including his college campus and fraternity at University of Kansas and his hometown in Holdrege, Nebraska.

Feeling full of purpose and energetic renewal, Schmidt arrives in Denver, where he stays at the home of Roberta, Randall's mother.

The next day, Schmidt, exhausted from a restless night, attends the wedding and delivers a kind speech at the reception, hiding his disapproval.

[4] Payne made many changes[specify] from the book, though Begley commented in an essay in The New York Times that "my most important themes were treated with great intelligence and sensitivity" and felt the movie was "a gem of original filmmaking.

At least one scene was filmed in Denver where Jack Nicholson's character is driving in front of the famous Ogden Theater located at 935 E Colfax.

[7] Before agreeing to the nude hot tub scene, Kathy Bates said she hashed out with director Payne exactly what part of her anatomy would be shown and what wouldn't.

Another actor might have made the character too tragic or passive or empty, but Nicholson somehow finds within Schmidt a slowly developing hunger, a desire to start living now that the time is almost gone.

"[13] Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "It's a commanding Jack Nicholson lead performance that puts it into a sublime league of its own.