As Good as It Gets
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The movie As Good As It Gets is about a grouchy novelist, named Melvin Udall, who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Melvin doesnt like anybody. He is very cold-hearted and disrespectful to everyone he comes in contact with. He carries his own silverware into restaurants, locks his apartment door five times a night, and never steps on a sidewalk crack. Melvin is completely obsessed about making everything a routine.
Every morning he goes to the same restaurant where he sits at the same table and orders the same breakfast. The waitress, Carol, is very patience and somehow manages to deal with all of his rude behavior. She smiles when she talks to him and ignores all of his outrageous remarks. In a way, Carol helps him control himself because he knows that if he is disruptive than the manager will put him out of the restaurant and he will not be able to be served by Carol. Therefore, his daily routine would be destroyed.
While the movie is very funny, it also showed the seriousness of obsessive compulsive behavior. People with this behavior cannot enjoy life the way others can. They are not free to be spontaneous. They are constantly worried with their obsessions. People suffering from Obsessive Compulsive disorder know that their behavior is irrational and excessive, yet they still have very little control over it.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is classified as a mental illness, and is characterized by the recurrence of anxiety-producing thoughts, which are known as the compulsions.
When the person tries to suppress these thoughts it leads to them performing irrational behavior, which is known as the compulsions.
In the movie, Melvin learns to deal with his disorder by falling in love. First, he is forced to take care of his neighbors dog because of the terrible accident that the neighbor was in. In the begging, he hated the dog, but after Melvin spent time with it, he began to soften his rigid demeanor. He began to walk the dog and read to the dog, and even ate dinner the same time as the dog. When the dogs owner came back, Melvin did not want to give the dog back.
Next, Melvin falls in love with the waitress from his favorite restaurant. He provides a doctor for her sick child and actually tries to take her out on a date. After being around Carol, he realizes that he needs to change some of his behaviors