AS GOOD AS IT GETS (1997)
Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson, who won the Oscar for best actor for this role) is a paperback romance novelist. In the grips of obsessive-compulsive disorder, Melvin terrorizes a waitress, Carol (Helen Hunt) whom he nevertheless depends on because no other waitress will serve him.
When Carol is absent from work because of her asthmatic son, Melvin arranges medical care for the boy at his expense, just so that she can get back to serving him breakfast. Carol, who is desperate to find good healthcare for her son and is being jerked around by an unfeeling HMO, is moved by the Melvin's kindness. She regrets exploding at him and writes him a letter of apology, which she insists on reading:
I'm sorry. I'm sorry for busting in on you that night . . . when I said I was never . . . I was sorry and I'm sorry every time your food was cold and that you had to wait two seconds for a coffee filler. And I'm sorry for never spotting, right there at the table in the restaurant, the human being that had it in him to do this thing for us.
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