Nurse Betty

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.

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

People keep asking "is this a romantic comedy?", "a black comedy?", "a violent thriller?". If you're the kind of person who is not comfortable with a film unless you can safely store it into one of five or six comfy little categories, move on (or as Jack Black says, "go to the mall!"). To quote Roger Ebert, "audiences lobotomized by one-level stories may find this confusing". It's really a sweet little comedy that breaks a number of 'sweet little comedy' rules, by introducing real terror and a few (count 'em - 3) scenes with a bit of gore. Like Jonathan Demme's minor masterpiece, SOMETHING WILD, we are taken out of a safe little world (Kansas, literally) to another dimension. This dimension is part Oz and part grit. Oz is the fantasy life of the main characters (for Zellweger it's Kinnear, the fictional doctor on a soap opera, and for Freeman it's Zellweger, who he sees as a sort of modern Doris Day). Intertwined with the fantasy is the frighteningly realistic fact that Freeman and his son Wesley, are hit men. What hit men do ain't pretty. I'm personally relieved that this is not a cute comedy with 'widdle cuddwly' hit men who are really not so bad because after all, their violence is bloodless: we can overlook what they do. UH-UH! We are not left off the hook that easily! On the other hand, Morgan Freeman is an authentically charming guy, and in many ways, this film contains some of the most sparkling romance (real and/or imagined) that's been seen on the screen in a long time! This indeed is a film that breaks many conventions while celebrating others, but be forewarned, this is not a safe, cuddly film. You're not in Kansas anymore!

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?

As Betty Sizemore (Renee Zellweger) secretly watches her tyrannical husband Del (Aaron Eckhart) being murdered by the vengeful hitmen Charlie and Wesley (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock), her bruised sense of reality becomes totally immersed in the fantasy world of her favorite soap opera. In a state of complete denial and delusion, Betty escapes both physically and mentally from her unsatisfied, small town life to search for "Dr. David Ravell" (Greg Kinnear), the handsome and loving hero of "A Reason to Love", a soap opera set in a hospital and produced in Los Angeles. Immune to reality, Betty arrives in L.A. and becomes "Nurse Betty" as she tries to belong in the hospital world of her dream lover. Meanwhile, the angered Charlie and Wesley track Betty down, convinced she is a dangerous witness who also knows about their compromising dealings with Del.

Nurse Betty creates comedy and suspense by contrasting its main character's extreme innocence and optimism with the evident hypocrisy and violence that surround her. By clearly defining the protagonist's difficult life, Nurse Betty justifies its character's tendency to turn away from reality. Thus, while offering a comment about the popularity of the soap opera within the film, Nurse Betty also makes a comment regarding the widespread addiction to television and its celebrities. In addition, Nurse Betty benefits from the effective manipulation of its protagonist's mental state, particularly in those scenes where she cannot distinguish between "Dr. David Ravell", the character, and George McCord (Greg Kinnear), the actor who plays him. Betty's incapacity to recognize George as an actor leads to funny misunderstandings, which stress the magnitude of her delusional state. However, in spite of these successes, Nurse Betty suffers from the troubling characterizations through which the narration evolves. For example, while Charlie and Wesley are consistently portrayed as a comical pair, the brutality of their actions undermines any sense of appreciation or acceptance the viewer might have initially experienced. Similarly, although the initial scenes establish Del as a detestable man, the humiliation and violence he experiences with his murderers surpass all the humiliation and violence he caused his wife Betty.

Finally, toward the end of the film, Charlie undergoes awkward transformations as he develops an obsession for Betty; an obsession which results in noble feelings of love, and which ultimately destroys him. Consequently, since the characters' roles as victims lack consistency, the story's victimization processes seem random and unsubstantial. All in all, Nurse Betty's indeterminacy --rather than creating suspense-- weakens its characters and pollutes its plot.