Renee Zellweger in "Nurse Betty."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, we gives this film a: Stars: Renee Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Chris Rock, Aaron Eckhart Director: Neil LaBute Rated: R Length: 110 mintues

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Marshall Fine
Gannett News Service

(September 8, 2000) -- Having plumbed the darkest impulses of human nature in his first two films, director Neil Labute looks at the sunnier side of life in "Nurse Betty." Of course, the notion of sunniness is relative in Labute's case, given that his idea of upbeat includes a pair of hit-men, a vicious scalping and a delusional woman convinced she is the former fiancee of a TV character.

Labute, who explored male nastiness and weakness in "In the Company of Men" and "Your Friends and Neighbors," is working for the first time from a script by others (John Richards and James Flamberg). He's also focusing more on a female character for the first time (though there were plenty of women in "Friends and Neighbors").

But his real subject is about the power of images -- televised or photographic -- to captivate and enrapture us, even when our interpretation of those images is conspicuously wrong-headed. We project our own needs on the entertainment that we consume, assuming that those who create it are on our wavelength. Take that idea to the extreme and you get John Hinckley, Charles Manson and Mark David Chapman.

Labute is working in slightly more benign territory here, focusing on Betty Sizemore (Renee Zellweger), a waitress in a Kansas diner trapped in an unhappy marriage to a used-car dealer named Del (Aaron Eckhart). The only joy in her day is the hour she devotes to her favorite soap opera, "A Reason to Love," and her unrequited crush on the show's central character, Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear).

Life merges with fantasy, when Betty accidentally witnesses a grisly confrontation between her swinish husband and a pair of out-of-town business associates, Charley (Morgan Freeman) and Wesley (Chris Rock). Del has been dabbling in drug dealing and has attempted to doublecross his partners, who now want their goods returned.

When the police question her, Betty can remember nothing about her husband's death. Indeed, the shock of her experience has produced the delusion that she is the long lost ex-fiancee of Dr. David Ravell and that she must return to him immediately. So she hops into one of Del's cars (the one with the drugs hidden in the trunk, natch) and heads for L.A. to find her fictional beau. Thus begins a lengthy road trip that's not exactly a comedy and not really a drama. The story moves back and forth between Betty's quest to find the imaginary Dr. Ravell and the efforts by Charley and Wesley to track her down and finish their job.

But after living a life of cruel disappointment, Betty has reached a serendipitous state, when she finds everything going her way. Unable to locate Dr. Ravell at an L.A. hospital (while wearing a nurse's uniform), she accidentally saves a life and is given a job as a nurse (despite her complete lack of credentials).

When she does meet George McCord, the actor who plays Dr. Ravell, she addresses him as David and comes on as being so intensely caught up in the soap-opera fantasy that McCord is beguiled.

He assumes wrongly that she is an actress deeply into her improvised character, which provokes him to reconnect with his own character and do some of his finest work.

Even as Betty chases her dream, Charley and Wesley are trekking across the United States to find her. As they go, however, Charley (who is planning to retire after completing this job) finds himself bewitched by the photos of Betty that he carries. He begins constructing an image of her in his mind, a fantasy that has nothing to do with who Betty actually is and everything to do with his own romantic longing (much to his more cynical partner's increasing disgust).

The writing, by Richards and Flamberg, has its moments, particularly in the topsy-turvy conversations between the love-struck Betty and the confused but flattered McCord, who finds himself pulled into Betty's imaginary world. The dialogue works on a couple of levels of comic misunderstanding with surprising grace.

But the running dialogue between the older, more conservative Charley and the younger, headstrong Wesley is often flat and even pretentious. It is leavened only by the total commitment of the marvelous Morgan Freeman and the biting delivery of Chris Rock, whose best lines seem improvised.

Zellweger, with her marshmallowy blond good looks, floats above the fray, secure in Betty's pretty delusions. Kinnear has the vanity of this actor down perfectly, while Eckhart is a comic monster in the abbreviated role as Betty's churl of a spouse.

Our modern world seems to encourage that mixing of fantasy and reality -- Hello, "Survivor"? -- which "Nurse Betty" skewers with occasionally sharp points. Still, this amiable, sometimes violent fable never quite finds its rhythm, despite the winning performances of its principal players.