A large part of the movie is dedicated to Simon's dog, a seriously cute little mutt named Verdell. When Simon is hospitalized, the dog ends up with Melvin, sparking the best scenes of the movie. Indeed, the whole film is worth watching just to see this dog imitate Melvin's obsessive compulsive idiosyncrasies.

One of these idiosyncrasies is to eat at a certain table in a restaurant where Helen Hunt is the waitress. This triangle of characters duck and weave their way through a movie well littered with strong dialogue and laugh out loud one liners. Even though the publicity prior to the opening of the film has already previewed many of Melvin's really biting barbs, they still work well in the context of the film, and the eccentricities of the character are believeable if bizarre.

Nicholsons's best work is as a demon and in As Good As It Gets he's human, but only just, leaving plenty of space for his devilish underbelly to poke wickedly through his shirt buttons.

Kinnear is delightful as the artiste, if horribly stereotyped, and proves to be a strong team player. Cuba Gooding Jr.'s supporting role as Simon's agent is fun but also shows little change from his award winning performance in Jerry Maguire. Helen Hunt is very strong as the weather beaten waitress, but she displays little variation from her Mad About You persona, except that she lives on the other side of New York and wears lousing clothes that seem to be obsessed with her bust.

All in all, As Good As It Gets is a wonderful and bizarre flight into the lives of three individuals and the ways they influence each other's lives. Unfortunately all flights have to come to an end somewhere, but writers James L. Brooks and Mark Andrus just seem to run out of gas and make an emergency landing, which detracts from an otherwise delightful and very rewarding piece of theatre.