Rating: Summary: Just what the doctor ordered Review: Things are looking up. After a summer of mostly dismal, prefabricated movies, the approach of fall heralds more ambitious fare, such as Nurse Betty. This idiosyncratic dark comedy about a likable young woman (Zellweger) who becomes convinced that she is a character on a soap opera is full of surprises, impeccable acting and smart writing. In an extraordinary, multilayered performance that suggests Doris Day at her most resilient, Zellweger plays Betty Sizemore, a sweet-natured waitress in a poky Kansas diner who spends her days pouring coffee and her nights watching taped episodes of her favorite soap, A Reason to Live. When she inadvertently witnesses a grisly murder by two hit men, she develops temporary amnesia. Believing she's Nurse Betty from the soap, she heads to L.A. for a rendezvous with her true love, Reason's widowed hero, Dr. David Ravell (Kinnear). The killers take off after her. The ensuing journey turns into one of self-discovery for both Betty and Charlie (Freeman), the older, more reflective of the hit men. In her fictional guise, Betty gains a strength she never had before while Charlie, the hard-nosed realist, finds himself questioning everything of which he was once sure. Director Neil LaBute (Your Friends & Neighbors) skillfully steers the film between gentle humor, outright farce, disturbing violence and moments of real pain, leaving the viewer in a delightful and rarely experienced predicament: not knowing what will happen next. The casting of Freeman and Rock adds immeasurably to the film, with Freeman giving it tragic grandeur and Rock contributing comic zing. Also noteworthy is Kinnear, whose preening turn as a soap star deftly skewers the pretensions and vanity of a minor TV personality.
Rating: Summary: Inventive, dark & very funny... Review: Renee Zellweger shines in this inventive, dark, and very funny film about a small town girl caught up in a Hollywood TV soap. So many twists & turns with 2 or 3 different plots running on at the same time. A great supporting cast featuring Greg Kinnear, Morgan Freeman & Chris Rock (Kinnear as the soap's Dr. "Do-All" Ravell, and Freeman & Rock as the father/son team of bad guy drug chasers). Also note fine performances by lesser known actors Aaron Eckhart (Betty's car salesman slimeball husband) and Allsion Janney (the TV soap's producer). Betty plays the naive small town girl working as a waitress to a tee. She's clueless to everything that's going on around her - even her husband's murder (at the time). She mentally blocks out the murder and hops in a car and heads to Los Angeles to find her true (and unexpecting) love. The scene where she finally meets Kinnear face to face is outstanding. All the time, she is driving the car with the stash in the trunk that Freeman & Rock want so badly. Hence, enter the 2nd plot and more comic relief. I went into this movie not really knowing what to expect... I had read some good reviews in the newspaper so I thought I'd go see it... I was pleasantly surprised. Great flick.
Rating: Summary: A surprizingly good movie. Review: Not being a fan of renae Zellwegga put me of wanting to watch this movie before hand but since it was on t.v and happened to star Morhan Freeman and Chris Rock and also everone else was watching it I gave it a shot, thinkning it was a comedy I was quite surprized after a very serious scene at the beginning of the movie where here husband is shot dead by some criminal.
The movie is well acted and has a rather thoughtfull storyline, you can't help but take great liking to the storyline. With a great romantic style soundtrack, two sides to a great story topped of with a good ending makes Nurse Betty without a doubt a great movie. Being a fan of a famous sope-opera in which she has fallin in love with the main character, she witnesses the murder of her husband who is cut and shot by a couple of criminals. After being traumatised by the event she snaps into thinking that she knows and is in love with the main character of her much loved soap, she takes of in search of the actor convinced she is going to get back with him, the two criminals (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock) go after her after seing that she witnessed the whole event in the newspaper.
The movie is deffinately a good watch, im not even a fan of this type of movie but i thought it was great im sure you'll like it, the story line is great and is topped by a rather sad but good ending.
Rating: Summary: Not very good movie Review: From the Previews I had seen I thought that this movie was going to be a good one.
What I saw made me what to ask for my monie back. I thought that the movie was horrible.
The plot is that a woman sees her husband killed in a way that is very bad and she thinks that she is a character on a soap opera that she watches. The plot might have been bariable with better acting, but even Renee Zellweger and Greg Kinnear who are good actors did not do a very good job in this movie.
Rating: Summary: My favorite Renee Zellweger movie Review: In concert with the full-out marketing blast for the premiere of 'Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,' I see imdb.com is today asking its browsers to vote for their favorite Renee Zellweger film. Though I love her Bridget Jones portrayal (she had to win over a skeptical England, after all) and she'll forever be Dorothy (You had me at 'Hello') Boyd, I'll cast my vote for her less-remembered title character role in Neil LaBute's 'Nurse Betty.'
This is a movie that defied definition and, as a result, a box office ($25M for a film that cost $24M to produce). But it shouldn't prevent you from seeing it. There are great performances from Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock and especially Greg Kinnear as the shallow Dr. David Ravell/George McCord, the object of Zellweger's bizarre fixation.
Rating: Summary: extremely sad Review: This movie is not a comedy. There is not one funny thing in it. It is a story of a naive young woman who dissociates from reality during extreme stress and comes to believe that she is a character in a soap opera. This, played by the winningly innocent Renee Zellweger, who is a modern day Marilyn Monroe. All the rest of the characters are cynical, ugly people who circle around Betty like shades. The movie is an utterly unfunny, searingly sad portrayal of an innocent young woman buffeted by the vile cynicism of the world around her.
Rating: Summary: And Now For Something Completely Different Review: I'm not surprised to see so many negative customer reviews of this movie. While it is often referred to as a comedy, it's hardly what you'd call a yuck-fest. If it didn't have the name cast (Zellweger, Freeman, Rock, Kinnear) that it does, it would probably have been (more correctly) filed under "cult films." I was nearly sickened by the brutal murder scene about 15 minutes into the film. Admittedly, the film changes tempo thereafter, but that scene was so grisly that it was hard to work up a chuckle at anything else.
Call me squeamish. Call me a milquetoast. Call me when it's over.
Actually, I did find much of the movie to be clever and some of it to be quite entertaining. It is well cast, as others have noted. Aside from the stars, there are nice turns by Allison Janney, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Crispin Glover and Kathleen Wilhoite. The plot twists are indeed quirky and largely unpredictable. And it all comes to a tidy end, which is in itself ironic.
Maybe the film is just a little TOO clever, a bit too self-conscioulsy quirky. I'm sure it will find its audience. Cult films always do.
As for me, I'll long remember NURSE BETTY as a movie that made my scalp tingle...in sympathetic pain.
Rating: Summary: Final Germ 241 Review: This strange comedy features a mixture of fantasy and reality. Betty Sizemore, played by Renee Zellweger, becomes traumatized after seeing her husband brutally murdered. This triggers her to become caught up in the fantasy world of a soap opera. She mentally leaves reality for a fictional world created in her mind and truly believes that the character of Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear), from the soap opera "A Reason to Love", exists. Her obsession with Dr. David Ravell turns into a quest that takes her to Hollywood where she encounters this fictional character whom she believes is her lover. Since men are surveyors of women, Betty felt the need to conform into society's depiction of a "perfect" woman for this encounter. Renee Zellweger's character represents a woman who makes the pursuit of a man her reason of existence. This movie like many others symbolizes the typical woman who is seen as needy and reliant upon a man. Betty Sizemore exemplifies this stereotypical female character. The other obvious stereotype that can be seen from the movie comes from the title Nurse Betty. It is not accidental that in the movie the doctor is played by a man and the nurse is a woman. This in itself is a microcosm of our society where many believe these careers are gender specific. This movie can be categorized as a dark comedy for the reason that it is a complete satire of the typical female stereotypes that exists in our culture today.
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