But he's played to the hilt by Jack Nicholson in a very funny movie that starts with a central character you want to punch out and then convinces us that even obsessive-compulsives need love, which for Udall eventually takes the attractive form of Carol the waitress, a single mother struggling to raise her chronically asthmatic son. Director James L. Brooks (who shares a writing credit with Mark Andrus) moves "As Good As It Gets" forward at a fast pace that's determined partly by the formula for any romantic comedy -- this is boy meets girl, after all, even if the boy is almost past middle age and a genuine weirdo to boot. But Brooks takes his lead from his characters. The movie's good moments come from the convergence of Nicholson's screen savvy, Helen Hunt's goofy charm (she's Carol), and zinger lines penned by Brooks and Andrus.
Udall makes a good if improbable living writing paperback romances while holed up in his apartment. Across the hall, his neighbor Simon (Greg Kinnear), an artist, is brutally beaten. An art dealer (Cuba Gooding Jr.) forces Udall to watch Simon's dog while the artist recuperates. That's when Udall's control-freak life starts to unwind. This is a man who unwraps a brand new bar of soap every time he washes his hands. He takes plastic forks to the same restaurant and the same table where he's eaten every day for years.
He's nuts. Carol the waitress knows this but has the courage to put up with him. Then, not long after neighbor Simon is hospitalized, Carol disappears from work because her boy is in the hospital. Any deviation in his daily routine threatens to unhinge Udall. He has no choice but to pay for the boy's medical treatment to make sure Carol returns to work so he can eat.
It's funny to watch how Nicholson and Hunt work out this relationship. Nicholson pulls his Crazy Chinaman face to comic effect here: his eyebrows peak into twin V's, the tips of his forced smile point directly to his expanding scalp. It's a milder, older version of his maniac face in "The Shining," deployed here for comedy, not horror. Hunt, whose comic gifts made "Mad About You" into a TV hit, has the more difficult role. She's far younger than Nicholson. Her character has to be half brass to endure his insults. But she also has to melt when the script requires it.
Udall is stage center most of the time, but Carol is the character to watch, and so is Simon. Maybe it's because they're the targets of Udall's abuse; their ability to tolerate him, even if they wince now and then, proves their strength. And Brooks gives them good lines too. Late in the film, after Carol ditches Udall, Simon counsels him, "One of your few gifts is your willingness to humiliate yourself." Sounds scripted, yes, but it's funny. Hunt's comedy depends on pace. She takes a breath and then fires off a nothing line to great effect.
Director James L. Brooks is good at making us like total creeps, as in "Terms of Endearment," which won three Academy Awards, or "Broadcast News" or "I'll Do Anything," a much-maligned but enjoyable comedy. But here he relies too heavily on the conventions of romantic comedy to move "As Good As It Gets" to an ending which unfortunately isn't as good as this movie gets. The laughs are there. The acting is solid. You can quote funny lines in the office the next day. But you leave the movie feeling that Brooks risks more at the beginning than at the end. When hateful characters get more lovable and even better-looking after an hour, watch out. You're on a spur line linking up to that old Hollywood train.