This could almost be along the lines of another nut-case film, along the lines of Misery, where the leading female character is so obsessed with a fictional character, but you can sympathise with this one. Basically Betty Sizemore (Golden Globe winning Renée Zellweger) is a Kansas city waitress, and her favourite show is "A Reason to Love", but she doesn't realise it is only a soap opera. In her house, she witnesses the murder of her husband Del (Aaron Eckhart), while watching the show, but instead of telling the truth, she lied and said it was a friend of hers. Her favourite doctor (character) is Dr. David Ravell, played by actor George McCord (Greg Kinnear), and delusional with shock she is convinced that he is her former fiancée, so she decides to go to LA and find him. She first tries the hospital and fails, but with the help of Rosa Hernandez (Tia Texada) she finds "David", and he (George) is convinced she is a very talented improvising actress that wants to be in the show, so he obviously plans to put her in it. Meanwhile, Betty's husband's murderers, father Charlie (Morgan Freeman) and son Wesley (Chris Rock) are searching for the drugs stolen by Del, and they happen to be in the trunk of Betty's car, so they obviously set out to find her, and Charlie's sees it as his last "job" before retirement, but he is becoming delusional about her. Also starring Back to the Future's Crispin Glover as Roy Ostery, Pruitt Taylor Vince as Sheriff Eldon Ballard, Allison Janney as Lyla Branch and Harriet Sansom Harris as Ellen. Zellweger is really good as the delusional but sweet wannabe nurse, Freeman is always good, Rock is good in this non-comedic (but still loudmouth) role, and Kinnear has his moments as the actor, a good, maybe underrated film. Good!

Renee Zellweger is a Kansas housewife whose domineering husband is mixed up in drug trafficking. Two professional hit men -- Morgan Freeman and his son, Chris Rock, murder the husband in his dining room. Zellweger, unobserved by the killers, witnesses this and undergoes a dissociative reaction, assuming the personality of a nurse -- the eponymous Betty -- who is a character in her favorite soap opera. Believing herself to be the TV character, Zellweger takes off in her husband's car, which has a load of dope in the trunk, and travels to LA where she hopes to link up with another character in this mindless afternoon drama, "Dr. David Ravell", Greg Kinnear. Not realizing she is being pursued by the two hit men, she drives to LA where she manages to link up with Kinnear and is actually written into the show as a nurse named Betty. A handful of men in the know, including the local sheriff, catch on to what's happening and also seek Zellweger in LA. The ending is believable and poignant.

If that sounds crazy, it's because it is. And it's the writer's responsibility, John C. Richards. The curious thing is that Richards and the director, Neil Labute, with considerable help from the performers, just about pull it all off. This isn't a plot that has been cast in a familiar mold. Nope. I give it bonus points for sheer originality. Somebody went out on a limb. Somebody took a chance on a movie that was NOT a copy or remake of something that had made money ten years or fifty years ago. I imagine the people involved, down on their knees every night, praying fervently. I don't know if the film was remunerative but it's mostly successful on its own aesthetic terms.

It's what might be called an "initial premise" movie. You start off with a single transformative event, in this case the murder of Zellweger's husband and her adoption of a genuinely new personality, and follow the resultant logical paths realistically. "Groundhog Day" is another, better and more intricately plotted, example. "Nurse Betty" has its logical cracks, where the incidents give up their plausibility. Eg., at a party in LA, Zellweger finally runs into Kinnear, the guy who plays her ex-fiancé on TV. She's stunned (because, after all, she thinks she's Betty, who lost her fiancé long ago). She approaches Kinnear and a couple of his colleagues and introduces herself as "Nurse Betty", the character. She addresses Kinnear by the name of his TV character, "David Ravell." The group are puzzled at first, then convince themselves that she's an aspiring actress who insists on staying "in character" during the conversation -- and afterward, too, after Kinnear has become fascinated by her and the others bored. Kinnear drives her home and even when she kisses him goodnight, she's still in character, leaving Kinnear wide-eyed with astonishment at the relentless way she captures the character of Betty. On the next date, Kinnear returns her love. That development, the relationship between Zellweger and Kinnear at this point, is a crack in the logic, the kind that's absent from "Groundhog Day." By the end of Night One, Kinnear, like any other person, would realize that Zellweger is a few clowns short of a circus.

The rest of the film, which includes many digressions, succeeds beyond expectations. The relationship between Morgan Freeman and his insolent, nihilistic son is marvelously spelled out. Morgan is flawless in his exasperation. He manages to fall in love with the image of Zellweger as he unearths clues to her whereabouts and activities, and at the end he can't bring himself to shoot her. She's too sweet to shoot. After her transformation into Betty, she left a note behind in Kansas. "I want to help all life, whether it be animal, plant, or mineral." Who could harm the author of such a preposterous connative statement? His admiration of her comes as an epiphany, as he stands near one of the floodlights at the rim of the Grand Canyon. Zellweger, dressed as Dorothy, or maybe the Good Witch of the East -- well, characters that, like Zellweger, are from Kansas anyway -- appears to Freeman and he embraces her and kisses her tenderly. It's a scene that's at once eerie, romantic, and a little spooky. I once stood at one of those lights and threw some shredded paper into the updraft from the dark canyon and found myself surrounded by a thousand swirling bats who had misperceived the fluttering shreds as moths.

Right. Where was I? Okay. I was trying not to run out of space. Zellweger's performance deserves plaudits. Everything she does, every movement, every utterance, is naive and tentative. She really IS a likable character -- and that despite the fact that she's no glamor girl by Hollywood standards. But -- what an actress. Compare her performance as the bumptious 19th-century hick in "Cold Mountain." Just the opposite. But then everyone is up to snuff in this enjoyable film. Allyson Jannings does a fine job in a minor role. Watch her when she tells Greg Kinnear that she's considering killing off his character in the soap opera in a drowning accident. Kinnear is one of those narcissists who wears the kind of ten-thousand dollar thin black leather jackets that were popular at the time. He chuckles and says, "Oh, one of those castaway deals, right? Okay, how do I get back?" Jannings doesn't answer. She just smiles at him with those enormous blue eyes and tilts her head mockingly.

Not a masterpiece of film-making but a good, original, professional job by everyone concerned.

In a small Kansas town, beautiful blonde waitress Renee Zellweger (as Betty Sizemore) enjoys watching her favorite soap opera "A Reason to Love" starring handsome doctor Greg Kinnear (as George "David Ravell" McCord). Following a tragedy, Ms. Zellweger traumatically imagines she is a character in the soap opera she adores. As if she was on the TV show, Zellweger wants to work as a nurse and romance Mr. Kinnear. Tied in with the tragedy, her criminal Kansas customers Morgan Freeman (as Charlie) and Chris Rock (as Wesley) follow Zellweger westward, looking for drugs...

This could have been brilliant...

Artfully directed by Neil LaBute, the story by John C. Richards, "Nurse Betty" almost works. We have parallel American dream stories. First, there is the longing of Zellweger for the seemingly unattainable world existing only in "Hollywood". Knocked out of her mind by violent reality, she begins to live her dream. In her delirium, Zellweger pursues TV star Kinnear, with whom she has an imagined relationship. While this occurs, a more subtle loss of mind is experienced by Mr. Freeman, who begins to fall in love with Zellweger's character. A violent old Black criminal fantasizes a relationship with a pretty young White woman. Even more daring is which relationship is given the go, and which one is stopped dead in its tracks...

Black comedy, indeed...

Also a problem is the characterization of Freeman's sidekick, essayed by Mr. Rock. The professional comedian is the least funny (and most dispensable) of the comedy's quartet. If his reason for being there is meant to soften Freeman's character, it doesn't work. Freeman is made more despicable due to his connection with Rock's completely unlikable character. Perhaps the goal was to pair up the accomplished actor with the abrasive comedian. Actors and comics are not always interchangeable. Rock is unable to nail it down. There is promise in Rock's performance, though. He can also look to Kinnear for inspiration; a failed reporter then funny talk show host, Kinnear should have a shelf of "Supporting Actor" awards.

******* Nurse Betty (5/11/00) Neil LaBute ~ Renee Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Chris Rock