Nurse Betty

The Bad: The gimmick of this film, as with very many, is contrast. This time its the well-exercised contrast between mindless brutality and open, honest innocence. What's new is the ratcheting up of the extremes. The violence is a new extreme in this context. How much more can we escalate? Is our own innocence so permanently numb?

The Good: This film is remarkably sophisticated in its self-referential layering. Here is an indicator that in this category at least the general intelligence level in the US is rising. It takes real abstract thinking to appreciate this, and one imagines that an audience in the 80s would be thoroughly puzzled.

Simple films with theatric self-reference usually mix real life with a play-within-the-play. "Shakespeare in Love" and "illuminata" are of this ilk. Slightly more complex is real life within the play as with "The Truman Show." But here we have a new and lovely evolution, six layers of self-reference.

We have the layer of the real-life Renee and her film character. I am in no doubt that the marketing of Renee as the new America's Sweetheart is the real basis of this effort. So Renee playing the public Renee. Then we have Renee playing Betty. We are lead to believe that the three are simultaneously real. But this has been common for 75 years.

What's new is Betty "becoming" Nurse Betty. Another layer, and then full circle as the "real" nurse Betty becomes the play Nurse Betty. This last is assumed before it actually happens. Finally, we have Freeman's fantasy angel Betty, which we assume is the root of all the conflated layers. That makes six layers by my count. Think about it: this film requires a sophisticated viewer. As it will likely be a big hit, that sophistication must exist in the masses. Wonderful!

Incidentally, only two people in this film can act, and one is not Chris Rock. What's with this guy?

Nurse Betty (2000)

This is a sleeper, a dark comedy with enough inventive twists to call to mind The Truman Show but with a greater sense of reality to hold it down. Renee Zellweger is flawless as the naive, sweet, but utterly detached young woman named Betty who is addicted to a soap opera called "A Reason to Love." This seems sweet enough, but her husband is a jerk (totally) and things start to spiral, and get dizzy, as reality even for the viewer starts to shift ground.

Not that you are ever confused about what is happening or who the good guys are. The good guys are not Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock, for sure, as this unlikely and comedic father and son duo get involved, incidentally at first, in Betty's strange inner and outer life. A chase of sorts ensues, the soap opera becomes reality, and then reality becomes soap opera. And it's really hilarious and inventive and fast paced.

Is it a total work of genius? Probably not. Maybe Charlie Kaufman would have added another twist in there (I'm not sure how), and certainly some of the side characters could have seemed less cardboard, or less awkward as actors. But Zellweger is unbelievable (really, your jaw might drop at how convincing she could play her mental blindness, and her awakening, of sorts). And Morgan Freeman is his usually convincing and engaging self.

The utterly disgusting violence of one 20 second scene might turn off some viewers near the beginning, but if you can keep watching, the movie gets better from there. Much better.

This is an adorable, if somewhat edgy, comedy from a clever and witty script by John C. Richards, crisply directed by the very talented Neil LaBute, proving that he can handle comedy just as adroitly as he can the art house movie.

Renée Zellweger stars as Betty Sizemore, a sort of Doris Day of the 21st century, a waitress from Kansas whose fantasy life centers around Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear), star of a TV soap opera called, "A Reason to Live," to such a fanatical degree that she has memorized lines from the show after watching the tapes over and over again. (This will come in handy later on.)

Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock play a father-son team of cocaine-dealing hit men who ignite the premise of the movie by murdering Betty's slimy used car salesman husband, played by Aaron Eckhart, who starred in In the Company of Men (1997), also directed by Neil LaBute. Chris Rock is a comedic psychopath, and Freeman a fatherly murderer whose favorite dictum is "three in the head, you know they're dead." One of the amazing and characteristic things about Morgan Freeman is that even while playing a professional criminal, he manages to sound like the wisest, gentlest man you ever knew.

True, the plot relies heavily on co-incidence (Betty copping the keys to the Buick that just happens to have the goods in the trunk), precise timing (meeting Dr. David and entourage at exactly the right moment), and some questionable psychology (Betty's partial and convenient amnesia). But such contrivances should be written off as poetic license and ignored. After all, who would criticize Shakespeare for the tortured plots of his comedies? More significantly, what makes this work is the cleverness of the plot melded well with the personalities of the characters (while gently satirizing them), and some very funny dialogue. My favorite line is when Freeman, looking gravely at a picture of the disappeared little miss Nurse Betty, soberly remarks to Rock, "We may be dealing with a cunning, ruthless woman here." I wonder, could it be that some of the pseudonymous (and humorless) reviewers who trashed this movie here and at IMDb are jealous, out-of-work screen writers?

An observation and a question: Renée Zellweger has the kind of on-screen presence to delight the most jagged heart. And who really is the reigning queen of contemporary filmland comedy, Zellweger or Reese Witherspoon? They are both brilliant. Witherspoon is a little more over the top while Zellweger is more impish. It would be interesting to see them trade roles, say, Zellweger as goody-goody A-student Tracy Flick in Election (1999) and Witherspoon as Nurse Betty. Too bad something like that can't be done.

Incidentally, the song, "Ca Sera, Sera" heard in the background won an academy award for best song in the Hitchcock thriller, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The reason it reappears here is not entirely clear, but the resemblance of the wonderfully naive Nurse Betty to the on- and off-screen Doris Day (who also had a hit recording of "Ca Sera, Sera,") goes beyond the strawberry blond hair to a kind of irrepressible innocence. In Nurse Betty, however, the Doris Day world of white picket fences and monogamy is given a contemporary spin. Although this is to some extent a romantic comedy, it is one in which the answer to the question, Who gets the girl? is one never seen in a Doris Day flick.

Bottom line: if you can watch this without laughing old loud and crying some real tears, you need to get your hard drive fixed.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

In a small Kansas town, beautiful blonde waitress Renee Zellweger (as Betty Sizemore) enjoys watching her favorite soap opera "A Reason to Love" starring handsome doctor Greg Kinnear (as George "David Ravell" McCord). Following a tragedy, Ms. Zellweger traumatically imagines she is a character in the soap opera she adores. As if she was on the TV show, Zellweger wants to work as a nurse and romance Mr. Kinnear. Tied in with the tragedy, her criminal Kansas customers Morgan Freeman (as Charlie) and Chris Rock (as Wesley) follow Zellweger westward, looking for drugs...

This could have been brilliant...

Artfully directed by Neil LaBute, the story by John C. Richards, "Nurse Betty" almost works. We have parallel American dream stories. First, there is the longing of Zellweger for the seemingly unattainable world existing only in "Hollywood". Knocked out of her mind by violent reality, she begins to live her dream. In her delirium, Zellweger pursues TV star Kinnear, with whom she has an imagined relationship. While this occurs, a more subtle loss of mind is experienced by Mr. Freeman, who begins to fall in love with Zellweger's character. A violent old Black criminal fantasizes a relationship with a pretty young White woman. Even more daring is which relationship is given the go, and which one is stopped dead in its tracks...

Black comedy, indeed...

Also a problem is the characterization of Freeman's sidekick, essayed by Mr. Rock. The professional comedian is the least funny (and most dispensable) of the comedy's quartet. If his reason for being there is meant to soften Freeman's character, it doesn't work. Freeman is made more despicable due to his connection with Rock's completely unlikable character. Perhaps the goal was to pair up the accomplished actor with the abrasive comedian. Actors and comics are not always interchangeable. Rock is unable to nail it down. There is promise in Rock's performance, though. He can also look to Kinnear for inspiration; a failed reporter then funny talk show host, Kinnear should have a shelf of "Supporting Actor" awards.

******* Nurse Betty (5/11/00) Neil LaBute ~ Renee Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Chris Rock

Neil LaBute takes a dramatic turn from his first two films, In The Company of Men & Your Friends and Neighbors, with this funny and original thriller/comedy/road movie. When Betty (Renee Zellwegger) witnesses the brutal murder of her no-good husband (Aaron Eckhart), she develops a bizarre sort of amnesia, and flees in his car, not knowing that there is large stash of drugs in the trunk. Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock are the hit men who follow her.

What Betty is chasing, besides a new beginning (although she can't remember the old life) is her beloved, Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear). Only problem: Dr. David isn't real, he's a soap opera character on the show `A Reason To Love' and he's really an egotistical actor named George McCord.

To say any more regarding what develops would be too much, but Nurse Betty is certainly original. Its hit men are, like the hired killers of Pulp Fiction, are violent yet philosophical, its take on soap operas terrific spoof material, and its acting is the best feature of all. This has to be one of the best cast films in recent years. Renee Zellwegger is perfect for Nurse Betty, with the constant gleam in her eye that pushes her in her quest. Morgan Freeman brings his constant state of grace to the role of a killer at the end of his career, and Chris Rock is his partner, a man of rage and great impatience. Greg Kinnear is at his comic best as the vain actor/soap opera doctor. There are also great supporting performances from actors such as Emmy-winner Allison Janney (The West Wing), Harriet Sansom Harris (Frasier's agent Bebe Glazer), and Kathleen Wilhoite (Chloe on ER). Actually, the supporting cast is a Who's Who of television best character actors.

A unique film that is funny one moment and chilling the next, Nurse Betty is a mix of great acting, casting, and a terrific screenplay.