A father (Jack Nicholson) almost foams at the mouth when telling his daughter how he really feels about her husband-to-be.  After he’s forced into retirement and his wife passes away, Schmidt feels quite lost. His daughter is getting married, though, so he packs up his RV and drives across Nebraska to the wedding. He feels washed up, a failure with no hope for redemption. He shares his innermost thoughts with a pen pal, a third-world boy he's sponsoring, and stumbles upon his joie de vivre in the process.