Betty - Renee Zellweger - isn`t a nurse but she thinks she is. She went into a traumatised state after seeing her swinish husband Del - Aaron Eckhart - scalped and murdered by two enforcers who are searching for a missing drug haul. Betty`s really a waitress in small town Kansas, the state that`s famous in cinema for transporting young women into other worlds. She`s addicted to the daily TV hospital soap A Reason To Love and particularly drawn towards its hero Dr. David Ravell - Greg Kinnear. In her altered state she forgets her life with Del and sets off for Los Angeles to find Dr. Ravell, convinced he`s her long-lost fiance?. And not far behind her are the two enforcers Charlie - Morgan Freeman and Wesley Chris Rock.
This film is an original. Very cleverly written by stand-up comedian John C. Richards and his collaborator James Flamberg. Nurse Betty succeeds because it grounds its characters in their own weird reality. It also has a swag of terrific performances - Renee Zellweger shines as the innocent Betty, Chris Rock as Wesley is a terrific manic counterpoint to Morgan Freeman who`s rock solid as a dangerous man who discovers his soft side through Betty. The collision of Betty`s fantasy with the real world of television soap opera comes off brilliantly. I`m a real fan of LaBute, he embraces dangerous terrain in films and I love that.
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