Nurse Betty

9/8/20001h 48m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ She's chasing a dream... they're chasing her. ~

Overview:

What happens when a person decides that life is merely a state of mind? If you're Betty, a small-town waitress and soap opera fan from Fair Oaks, Kansas, you refuse to believe that you can't be with the love of your life just because he doesn't really exist. After all, life is no excuse for not living. Traumatized by a savage event, Betty enters into a fugue state that allows -- even encourages -- her to keep functioning... in a kind of alternate reality.

Director:

Neil LaBute

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$24,000,000.00

Revenue:

$29,364,989.00

Key words:

bartender
native american
writer
used car dealer
nurse uniform
tv production
heart specialist
anxious
fugue state
hilarious

Cast

Morgan Freeman

~ as ~

Charlie

Renée Zellweger

~ as ~

Betty

Chris Rock

~ as ~

Wesley

Greg Kinnear

~ as ~

Dr. David Ravell

Aaron Eckhart

~ as ~

Del

Tia Texada

~ as ~

Rosa

Crispin Glover

~ as ~

Roy

Pruitt Taylor Vince

~ as ~

Ballard

Allison Janney

~ as ~

Lyla

Kathleen Wilhoite

~ as ~

Sue Ann

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

Wuchak
Written 1 year(s) ago
6
Oddball dramedy about two people in love with their unreal fantasies

A small town waitress in Kansas (Renée Zellweger) is married to a jerk car salesman, but enjoys a soap opera in which she fantasies about the hero-doctor on the show (Greg Kinnear). Meanwhile a criminal duo (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock) chases the woman to Los Angeles whereupon the leader seems to develop a thing for her.

"Nurse Betty" (2000) is part dramedy, part road movie, part crime drama, part romcom and part black comedy. While it's rarely laugh-out loud, it's pretty consistently amusing. What throws it off is that it's such an eccentric mixture viewers don't know how to take it, especially with a fairly radical scalping sequence (and I don't mean scalping tickets). It helps, though, when you grasp that the movie's about Betty and Charlie and their romantic idealism of people they've never met.

At the end of the day this is an offbeat Tarantino-esque flick that's half-good and half-meh. The "meh" reaction is mostly due to its curiosities. Thankfully, it has depth and plays better on repeat viewings.

The movie runs about one hour, 50 minutes, and was shot in Los Angeles; Durango, Colorado; Grand Canyon, Arizona; and Rome, Italy (closing scene).

GRADE: B-/C+