As Good as It Gets/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alas, Poor Scrappy: Carol. Try not feeling her pain.
  • Anvilicious: Averted, for the most part. Despite absolutely crappy lives, mostly of their own doing, no one really gives anyone a 'Suck It Up' speech. The three main characters are their own worst enemies, effusive and self-destructive (and in Simon's post-hospital state, self-loathing)
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Really, pick anything, by anyone and everyone. Even the manager of Carol's restaurant tells Melvin to get out (or "man there's gonna be trouble." Other examples, most of which involved Melvin (hmmm):
    • Simon taking a swing at Melvin once the insults reach the tipping point.
    • "Shut up, kids!"
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: "Why can't I just have a normal boyfriend?!"
    • "Everyone wants that, dear. It doesn't exist."
    • "How do you write women so well?" "I think of a man. And I take away reason and accountability."
    • Simon's dead-on Jack Nicholson impression.
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming:

Simon: Thank you, Melvin. You overwhelm me. (beat) I love you.
Melvin: I tell ya, buddy, I'd be the luckiest man alive if that did it for me.

    • Also, the scene in the main page's picture when Melvin picks up Verdell and everyone around him smiles as he showers affection on the dog. It's also a Crowning Moment of Funny, because he's doing that out of happiness that he'd trained the dog to avoid stepping on cracks.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Melvin. Even when he tries to be helpful, either in his own abrasive way or actually doing something kind all on its own, no one is ever grateful to him, they all treat him terribly because his mental illness bothers them, and they constantly demand he stop being so rude and confrontational to others while they feel no need whatsoever to be anything but horrible to him.
  • Tear Jerker: Carol's thank-you note. And her conversation with her mother during: "What is it you want, Mom?"
  • The Woobie: Simon - first brutally beaten and then forced to use the weelchair. See also his backstory in Dark and Troubled Past in the main tab.
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