Summary Of The Film As Good As It Gets
The film opens in an upscale apartment in New York City, where Melvin tries to take his neighbor’s dog into the evaluator. After that does not work, he picks up the dog as it starts to pee and throws it down the trash chute. Later Simon bishop, an artist starts to look for his dog and knocks on Melvins door to see if he knows where Simons dog Verdell is. Melvin lies and says he does not know and closes his door. Simon returns to his party where a friend hands him Verdell and tells Simon that he found him licking a diaper in the trash. After hearing this, Simon goes to confront Melvin because he knows Melvin is responsible but as the door opens, Melvin berates him for disturbing his writing and insults him with homophobic language. Simons art dealer, frank, confronts him moments later about his outburst and tells him that he owes Simon a debt and must repay him later. While Melvin is a very famous romance author, in person he was a very rude, sexist, homophobic, anti-gay. He also had OCD and was a clean freak, refusing to step on cracks in the sidewalk, having to eat at the same restaurant at the same table with the same waitress every day. The waitresses name was Carol Connelly who was a hardworking single mother. She was the only one who had enough patience to tolerate Melvin at the restaurant. After Simon is assaulted by robbers and beaten nearly to death, frank forces Melvin to repay his debt to Simon by watching his dog.
Over time Verdell begins to soften the hard exterior of Melvin by his charm. One day Carol is not working at the restaurant and Melvin demands to know why. Eventually he finds out that her son has a server case of asthma and she had to take a few days off work to be able to take care of him. Through Melvin’s contacts he arranges for a doctor to attend to carols sons needs from now on. Carol is grateful for this act of kindness but she is also worried that that there might be an ulterior motive behind this and goes to Melvin’s apartment to confront him. She says that she is grateful for his kindness but that she will not sleep with him as a thank you. Melvin is shocked but replies that he only wants her to come back to work because it is part of his daily routine. Meanwhile Simon returns from the hospital depressed and penniless. His injuries leave him unable to continue working and there medical bills start to pill up. He tries to ask his friends for help but they all abandoned him. Melvin unexpectedly continues to help Simon by looking after Verdell and walking him daily. Frank persuades Melvin to take Simon to see his estranged parents and ask them for help. Before Simon went off to college his father payed him off to never come back home because he disapproved of Simon being homosexual. Melvin asks cooler to come along as a chaperone because he is still uncomfortable around Simon but secretly he wanted to spend more time with her.
Once they reached Baltimore, carol wants to go out and celebrate because she found out that her son had played in his first soccer game and had scored a goal. Since someone was still injured and recovering, she demanded that Melvin take her out to a nice restaurant to dance. While at the restaurant Melvin tells carol that she makes him want to be a better man and that he has started taking his medication for his disorder to help him be the better man that he wanted to be. This compliment is very touching to carol but then Melvin ruins it by insulting her dress and she strums off to the hotel with Simon. At the hotel Simon is inspired by carols beauty and asks to draw her. She is reluctant but eventually says yes and they stay up all night drawing different posses. Simon is so relived and reenergized that he does not ask his parents for money and they all travel back to New York.
Once they arrive in the city, carol storms off furious because of Melvin. She has mixed feelings for him because she is attracted to him but his compulsive behavior and his rude comments put her off. Simon arrives home to find that he is kicked out of his apartment so Melvin offers for him to stay in his spare bedroom until he gets back on his feet. Simon persuades Melvin to go to carols and reconcile and express his true feelings towards her. He follows this advice and carol realizing that while he is not perfect, does love her and would make a great father for her son.
