This seven-page undergraduate paper examines social psychology themes in the 2003 film, About Schmidt. The author explores why the protagonist in the film is a repressed Midwesterner who only begins to get in touch with his emotions in his mid-sixties after he retires, and analyzes his experiences as he awkwardly deals with the psychological transformation triggered by his reluctant retirement, the sudden death of his wife, his discovery of her affair with his best friend, and the upcoming marriage of his daughter to a man he considers an idiot.