Nurse Betty is a black comedy starring Renée Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock, Greg Kinnear, Tia Texada, Aaron Eckhart, Allison Janney, Pruitt Taylor Vince, and Crispin Glover.
Betty (Zellweger) is a waitress with aspirations of going to nursing school, but unfortunately is married to Del, a sleazy used car salesman (Eckhart) who is involved in shadier shit on the side. On Betty's birthday, her plans fall through so she's at home watching A Reason to Love, her favorite soap, starring George McCord (Kinnear) as the handsome doctor David Ravell. Del gets a visit from Charlie (Freeman) and Wesley (Rock), ostensibly here to talk about a car, but actually a pair of hitmen looking for the drugs Del stole. While Betty watches from another room, they torture and murder him, and Betty just kind of breaks.
Believing herself to be "Nurse Betty," David Ravell's former fiancée, she writes Del a "Dear John" letter, packs a suitcase, and sets off across the country to Los Angeles to find him. Charlie and Wesley realize that she's a) a witness and b) carrying the drugs they were sent to retrieve in the trunk of her car, so set off in pursuit. Along the way, Charlie develops a weird crush/obsession with her.
Betty gets to LA and through a series of wacky coincidences winds up getting a job as a pharmacy assistant at a hospital while she looks for "David Ravell." She winds up living with Rosa, a very nice young woman (Texada) who learns that "Ravell" is a TV character and, assuming that Betty is fucking with her, arranges for them to attend a dinner where the cast of the soap are going to be. Betty talks to Ravell, who assumes that she's a method actress and is taken with her, and eventually arranges for her to act on the show...whereupon Betty is shocked back to reality. Charlie and Wesley show up just as she's packing to go home, gunplay ensues, both hitmen die, and Betty winds up as a recurring character on the show as the soap cashes in on her newfound celebrity.
Weird little movie, this, but I like it. It's definitely influenced by the crime/comedy/thrillers that Tarantino helped popularize in the late 90s (this movie came out in 2000), what with the emphasis on dialog, the kind of over-the-top violence, and the sort of comedy-of-errors plotlines. Zellweger does a nice job of letting Betty be unflappable in her delusion, just kind of ignoring or laughing off any suggestion that she's in love with a character on TV, and likewise, Kinnear's McCord remains believably wrapped up in himself and in the actor's paradigm enough that he doesn't recognize what's going on with Betty until she breaks down.
It's weird seeing Morgan Freeman in this kind of role, because he's usually cast in a "wise old man" sort of way and that's how Charlie is initially presented, but it becomes pretty obvious that he's just as deluded as she is, in a way. Wesley (who it turns out is his son, and I didn't catch that until the reveal at the end the first time I watched this, but it's really obvious if you note the dynamic between them) has a clearer picture of what's happening, but he has his own issues - anger and misogyny for a start - and never manages to talk his father into facing facts. To wit: Betty is neither a calculating mastermind nor a perfect princess, she's a traumatized woman in a fugue state.
It's hard making dark subject matter funny, and I think Nurse Betty threads that needle. It's also probably the least creepy role I've ever seen Crispin Glover (the local reporter who tracks Betty down and then falls in love with Rosa) play.
My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium-high
Next up: The Seven Percent Solution
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