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'Betty' bounces from love to bullets
[Photo: Universal Studios]
Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman are hit men trying to eliminate Betty (Renee Zellweger), who witnessed her husband’s murder. |
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 7, 2000
A romance-addled soap opera fan meets a couple of cold hit men, and surprises ensue.
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Nurse Betty is a shaggy-dog story matted with blood, a tall tale that Doris Day could have made in her twinkly prime. If a ruthless artist like Sam Peckinpah directed it.
Neil LaBute's film operates at two wildly opposite poles: glossy, chaste romantic fantasy and violent interludes getting down and very dirty. This is a deceptively harsh comedy from a director whose previous sucker punches included In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, two painfully real, verbal battles of the sexes.
This time, LaBute attacks the movies establishing modern rules for men and women falling in love, the ones convincing us that irrational acts and glib remarks are the easiest routes to romance. Nearly everybody does something dumb for love in Nurse Betty, with messy, profane results those other films never dared to consider.
The title character isn't really a nurse. She's Betty Sizemore (Renee Zellweger), a tightly wound bundle of gee-whiz purity working in a Kansas diner. Betty is a devoted fan of the soap opera A Reason to Love, especially Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear), whose TV character is real to her in a peculiar way. Maybe David is an escape from the reality of her husband, Del (Aaron Eckhart), a philandering lout.
LaBute establishes this with the same bubbly charm of so many previous romantic comedies. Then, things turn vicious and dark. Del has ripped off a drug dealer. Two hit men have been dispatched to retrieve the merchandise and kill him. From the moment they enter Del's home, Nurse Betty becomes a very different movie.
Wesley (Chris Rock) and Charlie (Morgan Freeman) are the most electrifying criminal duo since Travolta and Jackson in Pulp Fiction, a contrast of old school wisdom and youthful disrespect. Charlie also develops a conflicted infatuation with Betty, giving Freeman several scenes to confirm his standing as one of our best actors.
Charlie is a chilling charmer, an old soul given to meaningful discussions with victims before getting to the point. Wesley is younger, more impetuous, ready to throw down any second, even to a child pointing a ray gun. Their interrogation and execution of Del recalls the Walken-Hopper face-off in True Romance and the infamous ear scene in Reservoir Dogs.
Their worst casualty is hiding in the next room. Betty sees everything, and she's traumatized. Shock combined with the soap opera obsession leads her into a benign psychotic state, erasing any notion that A Reason to Love and David don't exist. She calmly embarks on a road trip to Los Angeles where she'll meet the man she loves. Charlie and Wesley will soon follow to silence her.
Betty makes it to L.A. and visits a hospital where David supposedly works. She gets mistaken for a nurse and makes a grisly life-saving effort. The transformation is complete in her fractured mind; she's now nurse Betty, a professional equal to David, the last quality she needs to make him her own.
Will Betty meet David at last? What will he do when she professes her love? Can she get the words out before Charlie and Wesley kill her? Tune in Friday when Nurse Betty opens in theaters and learn all of the twisted answers for yourself. There is much more to know.
Perhaps too much. So many vivid characters populate the movie that LaBute can't possibly do justice to everyone. Surprisingly, the core romantic possibilities fare the worst of all. Trying to recover that plot line, plus wrap up every subplot, is more than the last 20 minutes can handle. Nurse Betty simply expires from satirical exhaustion and an overdose of stagy material.
But, it's a giddy ride until then. For the first time, LaBute isn't working from a script he wrote. His earlier films were interior pieces, but John Richards and James Flamberg's writing pushes him into broader comedy and an outside world handled well. Nurse Betty won best screenplay honors at the Cannes Film Festival and sounds like one that would be a pleasure to read.
None of this caustic material works unless Betty gains only nervous sympathies. Zellweger is perfect in that regard, with her adorably pinched face and perpetually suspicious eyes.
Nurse Betty is a uniquely perverse romantic comedy, and Zellweger is a brand new Day.
Nurse Betty
- Grade: B+
- Director: Neil LaBute
- Cast: Renee Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Chris Rock, Aaron Eckhart, Crispin Glover, Allison Janney
- Screenplay: John Richards, Jason Flamberg
- Rating: R; violence, profanity, sexual situations
- Running time: 112 min.
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