Derb – I loathed “About Schmidt.” I agree with your reader that it was another attempt to say that bourgeois America is soul-less and dead-hearted. That said, while I thought the message of “American Beauty” was shockingly unoriginal and deeply pernicious in its story line, I thought it was brilliantly executed and pretty entertaining (as I wrote a while ago). As for “About Schmidt,” I thought it was just depressing. And seeing what’s-her-name naked was more than I could take.