Aaron-Eckhart Movie Reviews

Brockovich is real, fighting the "big polluter", yet director Soderberg manages to give the viewer all they need to have genuine empathy for Brockovich without preaching the virtue of the small town and the single mother versus the implacable corporate entity. No, forget the movie-of-the-week conventions. Similar to "A Civil Action", EB is character driven from Finney's reluctant boss, the chameleon-like Aaron Eckhart's long suffering boyfriend to Marg Hegenberger's horrified realization at the swimming pool. This film depicts how the law works for real people without boring courtroom drama.

The DVD does not contain flashy special effects, but its many outtake scenes and commentary add depth to the characters. Viewing the extra scenes lends a greater appreciation for the real life Brockovich's determination, Roberts's delivery (alternately understated and explosive), and director Soderberg's commentary on editing choices. The supplemental features in the DVD version are more valuable than many other titles' self congratulatory "behind the scenes" documentaries.

Then a seemingly tragic twist of fate puts her on the road to a complete reversal of luck. After being seriously injured in a car crash, she sues the doctor who hit her. Her antagonistic personality and foul mouth cause her to lose her lawsuit. With bluff and bravado, she persuades her lawyer, Ed Masry, into giving her a job as a file clerk in his law firm.

Erin finds herself intrigued by one of the cases contained in the files she's putting away. Why are people's medical records included in a simple real estate transaction? She asks Ed if she can look into it. He agrees. What Erin finds horrifies her. A large electric utility near the small town of Hinkley has been dumping a highly toxic form of chromium into the water. Citizens in Hinkley are contracting various forms of cancer and other gravely debilitating diseases.

The film's main story line tells of Erin and Ed's efforts to persuade Hinkley's citizens to join in a class action lawsuit against the utility.

Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, and Aaron Echhart each illuminate the screen with their superb performances. In Roberts' case, it would be easy to focus on her good looks and skimpy wardrobe and slight her acting. The fact is, though, her acting in this movie is probably her strongest attribute! Throughout the film, Roberts' character comes off as completely natural, believable, and admirable - if not always likeable. Julia Roberts is certainly deserving of her 2001 Academy Award Best Actress award!

Albert Finney (nominated for Best Spporting Actor) plays the gruff, irascible, hard-working, and totally decent lawyer Ed Masry. Finney's Oscar-worthy performance is certainly the equal of Roberts. The chemistry between Roberts, the star of modern-day female movie stars, and Finney, the grizzled veteran of stage and screen, sparkles.

Aaron Eckhart' s portrayal of George, the biker-turned-boyfriend and live-in baby-sitter is a refreshing change from the typical - and expected - Harley-Davidson rider stereotype. As Eckhart depicts him, George is smart, tender-hearted, probably a bit lazy, possessed with a wanderlust he keeps under control, and a thoroughly decent fellow.

How director Steven Soderbergh managed to keep "Erin Brockovich" from becoming another tedious, cliché-ridden legal and family drama is intriguing, and is probably one of the key reasons for the movie's tremendous popularity. It would have been easy to turn "Erin Brockovich" into a film filled with stereotypical courtroom pyrotechnics; long, idealistic speeches about the "little guy" versus corporate America; and characters that are either too easy to hate or too easy to love.

That's pretty much what I expected when I began watching the movie. Instead, I witnessed a film filled with ordinary, decent people... people with faults, to be sure; but all living their lives as best they can. Instead of slick lawyers seeking victory at any cost, there are attorneys zealously representing their clients to the best of their abilities. Instead of hapless, pitiable victims of corporate greed, the townspeople of Hinkley are portrayed as caring, decent, law-abiding citizens whose only concern is the welfare of their families.

What Soderbergh has, in fact, done is present to his audiences a wonderful reflection of American life - the good as well as the bad. At the conclusion of this wonderful film, it's easy for viewers to walk away feeling pretty good... not only about the ultimate outcome of the movie, but also about the fact that we Americans are, for the most part, decent, caring, law-abiding citizens. And that makes "Erin Brockovich" a film well worth seeing!

Brockovich is real, fighting the "big polluter", yet director Soderberg manages to give the viewer all they need to have genuine empathy for Brockovich without preaching the virtue of the small town and the single mother versus the implacable corporate entity. No, forget the movie-of-the-week conventions. Similar to "A Civil Action", EB is character driven from Finney's reluctant boss, the chameleon-like Aaron Eckhart's long suffering boyfriend to Marg Hegenberger's horrified realization at the swimming pool. This film depicts how the law works for real people without boring courtroom drama.

The DVD does not contain flashy special effects, but its many outtake scenes and commentary add depth to the characters. Viewing the extra scenes lends a greater appreciation for the real life Brockovich's determination, Roberts's delivery (alternately understated and explosive), and director Soderberg's commentary on editing choices. The supplemental features in the DVD version are more valuable than many other titles' self congratulatory "behind the scenes" documentaries.

Then a seemingly tragic twist of fate puts her on the road to a complete reversal of luck. After being seriously injured in a car crash, she sues the doctor who hit her. Her antagonistic personality and foul mouth cause her to lose her lawsuit. With bluff and bravado, she persuades her lawyer, Ed Masry, into giving her a job as a file clerk in his law firm.

Erin finds herself intrigued by one of the cases contained in the files she's putting away. Why are people's medical records included in a simple real estate transaction? She asks Ed if she can look into it. He agrees. What Erin finds horrifies her. A large electric utility near the small town of Hinkley has been dumping a highly toxic form of chromium into the water. Citizens in Hinkley are contracting various forms of cancer and other gravely debilitating diseases.

The film's main story line tells of Erin and Ed's efforts to persuade Hinkley's citizens to join in a class action lawsuit against the utility.

Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, and Aaron Echhart each illuminate the screen with their superb performances. In Roberts' case, it would be easy to focus on her good looks and skimpy wardrobe and slight her acting. The fact is, though, her acting in this movie is probably her strongest attribute! Throughout the film, Roberts' character comes off as completely natural, believable, and admirable - if not always likeable. Julia Roberts is certainly deserving of her 2001 Academy Award Best Actress award!

Albert Finney (nominated for Best Spporting Actor) plays the gruff, irascible, hard-working, and totally decent lawyer Ed Masry. Finney's Oscar-worthy performance is certainly the equal of Roberts. The chemistry between Roberts, the star of modern-day female movie stars, and Finney, the grizzled veteran of stage and screen, sparkles.

Aaron Eckhart' s portrayal of George, the biker-turned-boyfriend and live-in baby-sitter is a refreshing change from the typical - and expected - Harley-Davidson rider stereotype. As Eckhart depicts him, George is smart, tender-hearted, probably a bit lazy, possessed with a wanderlust he keeps under control, and a thoroughly decent fellow.

How director Steven Soderbergh managed to keep "Erin Brockovich" from becoming another tedious, cliché-ridden legal and family drama is intriguing, and is probably one of the key reasons for the movie's tremendous popularity. It would have been easy to turn "Erin Brockovich" into a film filled with stereotypical courtroom pyrotechnics; long, idealistic speeches about the "little guy" versus corporate America; and characters that are either too easy to hate or too easy to love.

That's pretty much what I expected when I began watching the movie. Instead, I witnessed a film filled with ordinary, decent people... people with faults, to be sure; but all living their lives as best they can. Instead of slick lawyers seeking victory at any cost, there are attorneys zealously representing their clients to the best of their abilities. Instead of hapless, pitiable victims of corporate greed, the townspeople of Hinkley are portrayed as caring, decent, law-abiding citizens whose only concern is the welfare of their families.

What Soderbergh has, in fact, done is present to his audiences a wonderful reflection of American life - the good as well as the bad. At the conclusion of this wonderful film, it's easy for viewers to walk away feeling pretty good... not only about the ultimate outcome of the movie, but also about the fact that we Americans are, for the most part, decent, caring, law-abiding citizens. And that makes "Erin Brockovich" a film well worth seeing!

I'm surprised that this film did not win one Academy Award nomination because it certainly deserved to be considered. Not only did the story keep me glued to the screen for its full 157 minutes, but all the performances were excellent.

Al Pacino, as the coach, was outstanding. At 60 years old his face has the creases which add expression and depth to his performance, making me feel his every emotion. Jamie Fox, cast as the new young overnight sensation has a role that demands he first be unsure and vulnerable, then cocky and insufferable, then political and, finally, repentant. That's a tall order for a actor and he does it masterfully.

The rest of the cast is full of star power. Cameron Diaz is the young woman who has inherited the team from her father. Ann Margaret is her alcoholic mother. Dennis Quaid is an injured quarterback, LJ Cool is a football player, James Woods is the unscrupulous doctor, and even Charlton Heston plays a cameo role as the Commissioner. And, of course, there are some real players who round out this cast.

One of the criticisms of the film is that the sports action was difficult to follow because of the cinematographic effects using slow motion spinning of the football or the silhouettes of the men postured as if on a battlefield. But this not a football game to watch on TV. This is a larger-than-life mythic tale of modern-day gladiators who push themselves past the line of good sense for fame, fortune, money and glory and the corporate interests and media hype that keep it all together.

I loved this video completely and give it a high recommendation. You don't have to be a football fan to enjoy it.

Yes, the movie is 157 minutes long, but let me tell you, it's never boring. I disagree with many here in that I liked that visuals and film style that Oliver Stone used. I loved the little things he puts in a scene, especially the final play: when Beamen is looking into the endzone and you see lightning and an old player diving into the endzone, things like that. Of course, the performances are incredible, and it's a huge cast. Look for special cameos from NFL players and coaches, and of course Charlton Heston as the Commissioner.

I also like how the film starts out with a game, getting you into the action quickly. And then of course there's the length of the games. It's not just a two minute highlight, well except for the Monsoon Bowl. The first game last 20 minutes and the last is somewhere between 30 and 40. The pregame and halftime speeches are well written too.

In all, it has your basic, not too groundbreaking script, but a great cast, great visuals and sound, and exciting football sequences (the best I've ever seen). I recommend this one!

I'm surprised that this film did not win one Academy Award nomination because it certainly deserved to be considered. Not only did the story keep me glued to the screen for its full 157 minutes, but all the performances were excellent.

Al Pacino, as the coach, was outstanding. At 60 years old his face has the creases which add expression and depth to his performance, making me feel his every emotion. Jamie Fox, cast as the new young overnight sensation has a role that demands he first be unsure and vulnerable, then cocky and insufferable, then political and, finally, repentant. That's a tall order for a actor and he does it masterfully.

The rest of the cast is full of star power. Cameron Diaz is the young woman who has inherited the team from her father. Ann Margaret is her alcoholic mother. Dennis Quaid is an injured quarterback, LJ Cool is a football player, James Woods is the unscrupulous doctor, and even Charlton Heston plays a cameo role as the Commissioner. And, of course, there are some real players who round out this cast.

One of the criticisms of the film is that the sports action was difficult to follow because of the cinematographic effects using slow motion spinning of the football or the silhouettes of the men postured as if on a battlefield. But this not a football game to watch on TV. This is a larger-than-life mythic tale of modern-day gladiators who push themselves past the line of good sense for fame, fortune, money and glory and the corporate interests and media hype that keep it all together.

I loved this video completely and give it a high recommendation. You don't have to be a football fan to enjoy it.

Yes, the movie is 157 minutes long, but let me tell you, it's never boring. I disagree with many here in that I liked that visuals and film style that Oliver Stone used. I loved the little things he puts in a scene, especially the final play: when Beamen is looking into the endzone and you see lightning and an old player diving into the endzone, things like that. Of course, the performances are incredible, and it's a huge cast. Look for special cameos from NFL players and coaches, and of course Charlton Heston as the Commissioner.

I also like how the film starts out with a game, getting you into the action quickly. And then of course there's the length of the games. It's not just a two minute highlight, well except for the Monsoon Bowl. The first game last 20 minutes and the last is somewhere between 30 and 40. The pregame and halftime speeches are well written too.

In all, it has your basic, not too groundbreaking script, but a great cast, great visuals and sound, and exciting football sequences (the best I've ever seen). I recommend this one!

I'm surprised that this film did not win one Academy Award nomination because it certainly deserved to be considered. Not only did the story keep me glued to the screen for its full 157 minutes, but all the performances were excellent.

Al Pacino, as the coach, was outstanding. At 60 years old his face has the creases which add expression and depth to his performance, making me feel his every emotion. Jamie Fox, cast as the new young overnight sensation has a role that demands he first be unsure and vulnerable, then cocky and insufferable, then political and, finally, repentant. That's a tall order for a actor and he does it masterfully.

The rest of the cast is full of star power. Cameron Diaz is the young woman who has inherited the team from her father. Ann Margaret is her alcoholic mother. Dennis Quaid is an injured quarterback, LJ Cool is a football player, James Woods is the unscrupulous doctor, and even Charlton Heston plays a cameo role as the Commissioner. And, of course, there are some real players who round out this cast.

One of the criticisms of the film is that the sports action was difficult to follow because of the cinematographic effects using slow motion spinning of the football or the silhouettes of the men postured as if on a battlefield. But this not a football game to watch on TV. This is a larger-than-life mythic tale of modern-day gladiators who push themselves past the line of good sense for fame, fortune, money and glory and the corporate interests and media hype that keep it all together.

I loved this video completely and give it a high recommendation. You don't have to be a football fan to enjoy it.

Yes, the movie is 157 minutes long, but let me tell you, it's never boring. I disagree with many here in that I liked that visuals and film style that Oliver Stone used. I loved the little things he puts in a scene, especially the final play: when Beamen is looking into the endzone and you see lightning and an old player diving into the endzone, things like that. Of course, the performances are incredible, and it's a huge cast. Look for special cameos from NFL players and coaches, and of course Charlton Heston as the Commissioner.

I also like how the film starts out with a game, getting you into the action quickly. And then of course there's the length of the games. It's not just a two minute highlight, well except for the Monsoon Bowl. The first game last 20 minutes and the last is somewhere between 30 and 40. The pregame and halftime speeches are well written too.

In all, it has your basic, not too groundbreaking script, but a great cast, great visuals and sound, and exciting football sequences (the best I've ever seen). I recommend this one!

And yet I didn't enjoy this one. I mean, it was an unpleasant experience for me. And I think the problem lies in the basic premise.
We're asked to go along with an impossible plot. And that's ok. I've got no problem with that. Sometimes it's really great to get swept along by the force of a story that is based in fantasy. But then, at times, we're asked to see this one as though it's real. Betty's long-standing delusion is fantastical, right? But when Betty meets the soap star, for example, the fantasy stops. Labute fosters a palpable tension in the meeting. We dive into realism. Later, Betty saves a guy's life because she thinks she's a nurse, right? That's fantasy. I think we could all agree that she wouldn't have realistically been able to do the work she did on that dude. And yet, this whole time, the guy's spurting blood. He's in extreme pain.
Those are just two of the many examples of this going on. I see fantasy and realism as the opposite ends of the spectrum of storytelling. I think you can make a great movie anywhere on that scale. But I think that you have to figure out where you're gonna lie on that spectrum and stay in that general area. This movie continually jars us back and forth from one to the other. And, though the acting is skilled, different actors play their roles at different levels of reality. Freeman comes off as if he's acting in a drama, but Kinnear thinks he's in a comedy.
I'm still baffled by this movie. Some reviewers I respect liked it a lot. But watching this one in the theater was an entirely unpleasant experience for me. ...And I'm easily pleased.

Betty arrives in L.A. looking for "Dr. Ravell" and enjoys a couple of lucky twists of fate. After saving the life of a young man by using a procedure she saw on television once, Betty ends up with a job in a hospital and a place to stay with Rosa, the man's sister. Rosa even helps Betty look for David, until she discovers the truth and decides to set Betty up for a disastrous meeting with the actor who plays him at a charity function. This encounter becomes the pivotal scene of the film providing its best moments as "David" is totally captivated by what he thinks is amazing improvisational method acting from Betty. The scene is wonderfully sustained and provides the best acting moments in the film for both Zellweger and Kinnear. Their surprising connection provides the magic that allows the story to proceed. Of course, Betty's bubble finally bursts in a scene that is, somewhat surprisingly, brutally realistic, just as all the plot lines get drawn together for the film's climax. We are pretty sure Betty's life is going to have a happy ending, but there are enough twists and turns here that we are not willing to predict exactly how things are going to turn out.

This DVD includes the nine brief installments of the faux soap "A Reason to Love." One of the nice things about this DVD are the two director's commentary tracks, the first has LaBute with the cast, while the second features the director with the crew. However, this disc does not have any subtitles to turn on while you listen to the commentary. This is a movie where the performances overcome the limitations of the script. "Nurse Betty" is not a Black Comedy and trying to pigeon hole it into one category is a mistake since it incorporates elements from so many distinct types of films. The question is whether you like a little bit of whimsy in your movies.

Renée Zellweger stars as Betty Sizemore, a sort of Doris Day of the 21st century, a waitress from Kansas whose fantasy life centers around Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear), star of a TV soap opera called, "A Reason to Live," to such a fanatical degree that she has memorized lines from the show after watching the tapes over and over again. (This will come in handy later on.) Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock play a father-son team of cocaine-dealing hit men who ignite the premise of the movie by murdering Betty's slimy used car salesman husband, played by Aaron Eckhart, who starred in In the Company of Men (1997), also directed by Neil LaBute. Chris Rock is a comedic psychopath, and Freeman a fatherly murderer whose favorite dictum is "three in the head, you know they're dead." One of the amazing and characteristic things about Morgan Freeman is that even while playing a professional criminal, he manages to sound like the wisest, gentlest man you ever knew.

True, the plot relies heavily on co-incidence (Betty copping the keys to the Buick that just happens to have the goods in the trunk), precise timing (meeting Dr. David and entourage at exactly the right moment), and some questionable psychology (Betty's partial and convenient amnesia). But such contrivances should be written off as poetic license and ignored. After all, who would criticize Shakespeare for the tortured plots of his comedies? More significantly, what makes this work is the cleverness of the plot melded well with the personalities of the characters (while gently satirizing them), and some very funny dialogue. My favorite line is when Freeman, looking gravely at a picture of the disappeared little miss Nurse Betty, soberly remarks to Rock, "We may be dealing with a cunning, ruthless woman here." I wonder, could it be that some of the pseudonymous (and humorless) reviewers who trashed this movie here and at IMDb are jealous, out-of-work screen writers?

An observation and a question: Renée Zellweger has the kind of on-screen presence to delight the most jagged heart. And who really is the reigning queen of contemporary filmland comedy, Zellweger or Reese Witherspoon? They are both brilliant. Witherspoon is a little more over the top while Zellweger is more impish. It would be interesting to see them trade roles, say, Zellweger as goody-goody A-student Tracy Flick in Election (1999) and Witherspoon as Nurse Betty. Too bad something like that can't be done.

Incidentally, the song, "Ca Sera, Sera" heard in the background won an academy award for best song in the Hitchcock thriller, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The reason it reappears here is not entirely clear, but the resemblance of the wonderfully naive Nurse Betty to the on- and off-screen Doris Day (who also had a hit recording of "Ca Sera, Sera,") goes beyond the strawberry blond hair to a kind of irrepressible innocence. In Nurse Betty, however, the Doris Day world of white picket fences and monogamy is given a contemporary spin. Although this is to some extent a romantic comedy, it is one in which the answer to the question, Who gets the girl? is one never seen in a Doris Day flick.

Bottom line: if you can watch this without laughing old loud and crying some real tears, you need to get your hard drive fixed.

And yet I didn't enjoy this one. I mean, it was an unpleasant experience for me. And I think the problem lies in the basic premise.
We're asked to go along with an impossible plot. And that's ok. I've got no problem with that. Sometimes it's really great to get swept along by the force of a story that is based in fantasy. But then, at times, we're asked to see this one as though it's real. Betty's long-standing delusion is fantastical, right? But when Betty meets the soap star, for example, the fantasy stops. Labute fosters a palpable tension in the meeting. We dive into realism. Later, Betty saves a guy's life because she thinks she's a nurse, right? That's fantasy. I think we could all agree that she wouldn't have realistically been able to do the work she did on that dude. And yet, this whole time, the guy's spurting blood. He's in extreme pain.
Those are just two of the many examples of this going on. I see fantasy and realism as the opposite ends of the spectrum of storytelling. I think you can make a great movie anywhere on that scale. But I think that you have to figure out where you're gonna lie on that spectrum and stay in that general area. This movie continually jars us back and forth from one to the other. And, though the acting is skilled, different actors play their roles at different levels of reality. Freeman comes off as if he's acting in a drama, but Kinnear thinks he's in a comedy.
I'm still baffled by this movie. Some reviewers I respect liked it a lot. But watching this one in the theater was an entirely unpleasant experience for me. ...And I'm easily pleased.

Betty arrives in L.A. looking for "Dr. Ravell" and enjoys a couple of lucky twists of fate. After saving the life of a young man by using a procedure she saw on television once, Betty ends up with a job in a hospital and a place to stay with Rosa, the man's sister. Rosa even helps Betty look for David, until she discovers the truth and decides to set Betty up for a disastrous meeting with the actor who plays him at a charity function. This encounter becomes the pivotal scene of the film providing its best moments as "David" is totally captivated by what he thinks is amazing improvisational method acting from Betty. The scene is wonderfully sustained and provides the best acting moments in the film for both Zellweger and Kinnear. Their surprising connection provides the magic that allows the story to proceed. Of course, Betty's bubble finally bursts in a scene that is, somewhat surprisingly, brutally realistic, just as all the plot lines get drawn together for the film's climax. We are pretty sure Betty's life is going to have a happy ending, but there are enough twists and turns here that we are not willing to predict exactly how things are going to turn out.

This DVD includes the nine brief installments of the faux soap "A Reason to Love." One of the nice things about this DVD are the two director's commentary tracks, the first has LaBute with the cast, while the second features the director with the crew. However, this disc does not have any subtitles to turn on while you listen to the commentary. This is a movie where the performances overcome the limitations of the script. "Nurse Betty" is not a Black Comedy and trying to pigeon hole it into one category is a mistake since it incorporates elements from so many distinct types of films. The question is whether you like a little bit of whimsy in your movies.

Renée Zellweger stars as Betty Sizemore, a sort of Doris Day of the 21st century, a waitress from Kansas whose fantasy life centers around Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear), star of a TV soap opera called, "A Reason to Live," to such a fanatical degree that she has memorized lines from the show after watching the tapes over and over again. (This will come in handy later on.) Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock play a father-son team of cocaine-dealing hit men who ignite the premise of the movie by murdering Betty's slimy used car salesman husband, played by Aaron Eckhart, who starred in In the Company of Men (1997), also directed by Neil LaBute. Chris Rock is a comedic psychopath, and Freeman a fatherly murderer whose favorite dictum is "three in the head, you know they're dead." One of the amazing and characteristic things about Morgan Freeman is that even while playing a professional criminal, he manages to sound like the wisest, gentlest man you ever knew.

True, the plot relies heavily on co-incidence (Betty copping the keys to the Buick that just happens to have the goods in the trunk), precise timing (meeting Dr. David and entourage at exactly the right moment), and some questionable psychology (Betty's partial and convenient amnesia). But such contrivances should be written off as poetic license and ignored. After all, who would criticize Shakespeare for the tortured plots of his comedies? More significantly, what makes this work is the cleverness of the plot melded well with the personalities of the characters (while gently satirizing them), and some very funny dialogue. My favorite line is when Freeman, looking gravely at a picture of the disappeared little miss Nurse Betty, soberly remarks to Rock, "We may be dealing with a cunning, ruthless woman here." I wonder, could it be that some of the pseudonymous (and humorless) reviewers who trashed this movie here and at IMDb are jealous, out-of-work screen writers?

An observation and a question: Renée Zellweger has the kind of on-screen presence to delight the most jagged heart. And who really is the reigning queen of contemporary filmland comedy, Zellweger or Reese Witherspoon? They are both brilliant. Witherspoon is a little more over the top while Zellweger is more impish. It would be interesting to see them trade roles, say, Zellweger as goody-goody A-student Tracy Flick in Election (1999) and Witherspoon as Nurse Betty. Too bad something like that can't be done.

Incidentally, the song, "Ca Sera, Sera" heard in the background won an academy award for best song in the Hitchcock thriller, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The reason it reappears here is not entirely clear, but the resemblance of the wonderfully naive Nurse Betty to the on- and off-screen Doris Day (who also had a hit recording of "Ca Sera, Sera,") goes beyond the strawberry blond hair to a kind of irrepressible innocence. In Nurse Betty, however, the Doris Day world of white picket fences and monogamy is given a contemporary spin. Although this is to some extent a romantic comedy, it is one in which the answer to the question, Who gets the girl? is one never seen in a Doris Day flick.

Bottom line: if you can watch this without laughing old loud and crying some real tears, you need to get your hard drive fixed.

And yet I didn't enjoy this one. I mean, it was an unpleasant experience for me. And I think the problem lies in the basic premise.
We're asked to go along with an impossible plot. And that's ok. I've got no problem with that. Sometimes it's really great to get swept along by the force of a story that is based in fantasy. But then, at times, we're asked to see this one as though it's real. Betty's long-standing delusion is fantastical, right? But when Betty meets the soap star, for example, the fantasy stops. Labute fosters a palpable tension in the meeting. We dive into realism. Later, Betty saves a guy's life because she thinks she's a nurse, right? That's fantasy. I think we could all agree that she wouldn't have realistically been able to do the work she did on that dude. And yet, this whole time, the guy's spurting blood. He's in extreme pain.
Those are just two of the many examples of this going on. I see fantasy and realism as the opposite ends of the spectrum of storytelling. I think you can make a great movie anywhere on that scale. But I think that you have to figure out where you're gonna lie on that spectrum and stay in that general area. This movie continually jars us back and forth from one to the other. And, though the acting is skilled, different actors play their roles at different levels of reality. Freeman comes off as if he's acting in a drama, but Kinnear thinks he's in a comedy.
I'm still baffled by this movie. Some reviewers I respect liked it a lot. But watching this one in the theater was an entirely unpleasant experience for me. ...And I'm easily pleased.

Betty arrives in L.A. looking for "Dr. Ravell" and enjoys a couple of lucky twists of fate. After saving the life of a young man by using a procedure she saw on television once, Betty ends up with a job in a hospital and a place to stay with Rosa, the man's sister. Rosa even helps Betty look for David, until she discovers the truth and decides to set Betty up for a disastrous meeting with the actor who plays him at a charity function. This encounter becomes the pivotal scene of the film providing its best moments as "David" is totally captivated by what he thinks is amazing improvisational method acting from Betty. The scene is wonderfully sustained and provides the best acting moments in the film for both Zellweger and Kinnear. Their surprising connection provides the magic that allows the story to proceed. Of course, Betty's bubble finally bursts in a scene that is, somewhat surprisingly, brutally realistic, just as all the plot lines get drawn together for the film's climax. We are pretty sure Betty's life is going to have a happy ending, but there are enough twists and turns here that we are not willing to predict exactly how things are going to turn out.

This DVD includes the nine brief installments of the faux soap "A Reason to Love." One of the nice things about this DVD are the two director's commentary tracks, the first has LaBute with the cast, while the second features the director with the crew. However, this disc does not have any subtitles to turn on while you listen to the commentary. This is a movie where the performances overcome the limitations of the script. "Nurse Betty" is not a Black Comedy and trying to pigeon hole it into one category is a mistake since it incorporates elements from so many distinct types of films. The question is whether you like a little bit of whimsy in your movies.

Renée Zellweger stars as Betty Sizemore, a sort of Doris Day of the 21st century, a waitress from Kansas whose fantasy life centers around Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear), star of a TV soap opera called, "A Reason to Live," to such a fanatical degree that she has memorized lines from the show after watching the tapes over and over again. (This will come in handy later on.) Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock play a father-son team of cocaine-dealing hit men who ignite the premise of the movie by murdering Betty's slimy used car salesman husband, played by Aaron Eckhart, who starred in In the Company of Men (1997), also directed by Neil LaBute. Chris Rock is a comedic psychopath, and Freeman a fatherly murderer whose favorite dictum is "three in the head, you know they're dead." One of the amazing and characteristic things about Morgan Freeman is that even while playing a professional criminal, he manages to sound like the wisest, gentlest man you ever knew.

True, the plot relies heavily on co-incidence (Betty copping the keys to the Buick that just happens to have the goods in the trunk), precise timing (meeting Dr. David and entourage at exactly the right moment), and some questionable psychology (Betty's partial and convenient amnesia). But such contrivances should be written off as poetic license and ignored. After all, who would criticize Shakespeare for the tortured plots of his comedies? More significantly, what makes this work is the cleverness of the plot melded well with the personalities of the characters (while gently satirizing them), and some very funny dialogue. My favorite line is when Freeman, looking gravely at a picture of the disappeared little miss Nurse Betty, soberly remarks to Rock, "We may be dealing with a cunning, ruthless woman here." I wonder, could it be that some of the pseudonymous (and humorless) reviewers who trashed this movie here and at IMDb are jealous, out-of-work screen writers?

An observation and a question: Renée Zellweger has the kind of on-screen presence to delight the most jagged heart. And who really is the reigning queen of contemporary filmland comedy, Zellweger or Reese Witherspoon? They are both brilliant. Witherspoon is a little more over the top while Zellweger is more impish. It would be interesting to see them trade roles, say, Zellweger as goody-goody A-student Tracy Flick in Election (1999) and Witherspoon as Nurse Betty. Too bad something like that can't be done.

Incidentally, the song, "Ca Sera, Sera" heard in the background won an academy award for best song in the Hitchcock thriller, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The reason it reappears here is not entirely clear, but the resemblance of the wonderfully naive Nurse Betty to the on- and off-screen Doris Day (who also had a hit recording of "Ca Sera, Sera,") goes beyond the strawberry blond hair to a kind of irrepressible innocence. In Nurse Betty, however, the Doris Day world of white picket fences and monogamy is given a contemporary spin. Although this is to some extent a romantic comedy, it is one in which the answer to the question, Who gets the girl? is one never seen in a Doris Day flick.

Bottom line: if you can watch this without laughing old loud and crying some real tears, you need to get your hard drive fixed.