The last time was saw Jack Nicholson on the big screen was 2010, in James L. Brooks’ middling dramedy How Do You Know. He played a weaselly white-collar crook who asks his son to take the rap for a crime he committed, in a performance characterized by the usual Nicholsonian deviousness. The movie didn’t make too much of a splash, forgotten after a few weeks taking up space in cineplexes. That film may take on an unexpected tragic air in light of the breaking news that it may contain Nicholson’s swan song.
The answer to this question seemed fairly obvious to me. But when I asked a couple of women decades younger than him how they would react if it happened to them, they...