Ocd Viewed in the Movie as Good as It Gets

OCD displayed in the movie As Good As It Gets

As good as it gets was a very interesting movie,but no one who sees a good movie can't start off by saying this movie is about a great deal more than obsessive-compulsive disorder-about people and intimacy, and humor, and the importance of people for each other that go far beyond disease and have much more to do with just life. But certainly, Jack Nicholson gave a very good example of some of the typical obsessions and compulsions that someone may have. First of all, and most strikingly that in many ways, he's quite a rational, reasonable, and a normal person, and then he has these dramatic islands of irrationality, magical behaviors with these strange rituals, repeating, counting, and most pervasively and strikingly, contamination. And contamination fears are very interesting. Obsessive-compulsive patients, whether they've met anybody before with this or not, whether they are children or adults, do a lot of things very similar. In the movie there were many symptoms toward the disorder that were shown throughout the video such as his routines of washing his hands and the locking of his doors. Even the way he went about his daily routines, such as walking over sidewalk cracks and bringing his own eating utensils to the restaurant. He was a very unique character. If one did not know that he had OCD they would see him as a very strange type of person with very extraordinary habits. For example, the people in the restaurant never liked him because of his treatment of others, the way he mannered himself and his disregard for others. What they didn't see was his hidden character, which was a very caring personality.

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Film Clip:

Melvin: You have hard-shells, right?

Carol: Stop asking everyone.

Melvin: Just him. That's all. Okay, you can answer. We worked it out.

Maitre d': Yes, we do.

Melvin: Ah.

Maitre d': Oh, and, uh, I can give you a tie and jacket.

Melvin: What?

Maitre d': Oh, they require a tie and jacket, but we have some available. (Comes back with jacket.) Sir?

Melvin: No, I'm not putting that on. In case you were gonna ask, I'm also not going to let you inject me with the plague, either.

Carol: It's such a nice place. You probably have these dry-cleaned all the time, don't you?

Maitre d': Actually, I don't think so.

Melvin: Uh, well-- You just, uh, wait here. Excuse me. Thank you. Excuse me.

Woman: Excuse me. Sorry.

(Melvin drives to store to buy jacket, tires squealing.)

Salesman: Good evening.

Melvin: Uh, I need a coat and tie.

Salesman: Well, come on in.

Melvin: No.

Salesman: No?

Melvin: Uh, that one.

Salesman: This one?

Melvin: That one, yeah, and this tie

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It's an interesting point how gratuitously nasty he was and this is a point where I think art departs from reality. That certainly, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder can be lonely, alienated, and depressed, but the one thing that I think is not typical is the extraordinary degree of hatefulness that I think was a certain amount

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