Word: schmidts
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Fokin left behind his wife, Anastasia Khanina, and three children, Evgeny, 11, Anna, 2, and Grigori, only two weeks old. His wife, who does not speak English, has no job and needs help supporting her family, according to Chris Schmidt, a local filmmaker and friend of the family...
Fokin came to the United States from Russia three years ago with nothing but a suitcase full of puppets he made himself, Schmidt said...
Fokin was one of the last people still practicing this craft, Schmidt said...
...Schmidt loves his daughter and admires his future son-in-law, but he likes neither. He sees Charlotte as "a smug overworked yuppie" and Riker as an uncultured legal drone. Riker is also a Jew, which puts Schmidt in the awkward position of being branded a bigot because he does not enthusiastically welcome him into his family. To complicate the issue, Schmidt must vigorously fend off Riker's mother, an overzealous psychiatrist who treats him as if he were a repressed Wasp. What she does not know is that Schmidt is having a hell of a good time...
Elements of social satire outweigh any serious intent Begley might have to air the subject of genteel anti-Semitism. Schmidt, like most people, has an active Them-and-Us reflex, and his real biases are generational. He grouses dolefully about the slide in professional standards, the decline of civility and the thoughtlessness of youth. In what could be called a novel of bad manners, Begley again demonstrates that he can reveal the complexities of society and personality with a clear eye and graceful style. Schmidt may not live up to today's strict standards of political correctness, but he more...