Nurse Betty

Synopsis: Betty Sizemore (Renée Zellweger) is a waitress in a small town, stuck in a bad marriage to a cheating con man (Aaron Eckhart). She avoids the misery of her life through her addiction to General Hospital-style soapie, "A Reason to Love". One night she witnesses the brutal murder of her husband and goes into dissociative shock. She believes she is "Nurse Betty" and is the long lost love of Dr Ravell, (the star character from "A Reason to Love"). Betty packs her bags, borrows one of her husband's cars and leaves town to re-unite with her true love. It is this car the killers are looking for, they in turn follow Betty across the country.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting to like this film, but…it is clever, hilarious, ridiculous, and, did I say clever? Nurse Betty is a dark comedy, a road movie where the characters embark on journeys, both physically and psychologically.

It is truly refreshing to see Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock beautifully cast against type as the hitmen. These hitmen are original too, not the common archetypes we've been seeing in film lately. Freeman is wise and sexy and has a wonderful romantic scene (even if it is a fantasy). Fantasy is the theme in this modern take on the Wizard Of Oz tale. Nurse Betty is even set in Kansas, and Betty, with her cane handbag and trusting heart leaves for Los Angeles (an Oz full of fake wizards and broken dreams, if ever there was!). She even meets a good witch in a seedy bar in Arizona. In the first half of the film there is a distinct lack of colour until Dorothy/Betty arrives in LA, where the colour blooms!

Nurse Betty is reminiscent of the classic mistaken identity comedies from the '50s and '60s, with today's violence, pace, social commentary and black humour added. The film allows us to be pop culturally astute - you start to think how like a Doris Day character Betty is, then the soundtrack segues into "Que Sera Sera", then Freeman describes his prey, Betty, as a Doris Day type. Nurse Betty also refers to Audrey Hepburn movies, right down to the closing shot of a fountain in Rome, in the Europe (to paraphrase a line from that film). Nurse Betty's road trip even moves along famed Route 66 (Chicago to LA); and like all good road movies: the bad guys die and the good guys get happy endings.

The actors are terrific, the script is intelligent, and the scenario is believable ludicrousness full of hilarious one liners. Life is a state of mind in Nurse Betty, and realities collide as life imitates art and vice versa. Laughter is good for you; it's a medical fact. See this film and laugh.

 

 

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