NURSE BETTY

2000

Director Neil LeBute has pulled off the most successful tightrope act in movies this year with this truly original work of art. He somehow manages to strike a balance between comedy and tragedy, silliness and horror, fantasy and reality, an air of charm and brutal murder...Doris Day meets Quentin Tarantino...and it all works! As a writer, Neil LeBute has created characters for the screen("In The Company of Men," "Your Friends and Neighbors,") and for the stage("Bash,") that teeter just this side of psychosis. Some of that is in this film as well, but there's so much more going on here. While I'm giving you a short synopsis of the story, think "The Wizard of Oz" and you'll have a good frame of reference. Betty, a Kansas waitress and soap opera fanatic, witnesses the brutal murder of her husband. She goes into a fugue state(amnesia,) and becomes one of the characters in the soap opera, driving off to L.A. (Oz) to meet the other "characters." In hot pursuit, are her husband's killers(they're after the drug "stash" in her trunk, and they know that she saw them. Only LeBute could make this believable, and even warm and fuzzy! It wouldn't surprise me if all of the actors in the film were nominated for Oscars, especially Renee Zellwegger (who almost won the Palme D'or at Cannes,) Morgan Freeman(his best role yet,)Greg Kinnear (his best,too) Allison Janney (TV's "The West Wing,), Aaron Eckhardt (in a cameo) and Chris Rock(yes, that Chris Rock!)Don't be put off by this review; see it!!!

5 Stars

NJB

If for nothing else, I think I have to give this film five stars just for the originality. Renee Zelwegger is a waitress who undergoes a significant trauma and begins to believe that a handsome doctor on her favorite soap opera (Greg Kinnear) is her long-lost love. She travels to Los Angeles to find him and accidentally takes her husband's car which has a bunch of stolen cocaine in the trunk, and therefore becomes hunted by professional killers Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock. Sound stupid? Yeah, I thought so too. You have to credit the screenwriter and the director on this one, though, for being able to take such a seemingly silly story, with a surprising amount of violence, and make it so touching. Excellent performances all around, except for Rock who plays one character -angry. If you've been waiting for a good comedy without fart jokes, this one should satisfy. Don't be surprised to see at least a few Golden Globe nominations for this one.

5 Stars

CDF