By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * *)
Betty (Renee Zellweger) is a Kansas housewife who's in love with a doctor on a soap opera. Charlie (Morgan Freeman) is a professional criminal. When Betty's husband, Del (Aaron Eckhart), tries to stiff Charlie on a drug deal, Charlie and Wesley (Chris Rock)
turn up at the house, scalp him and kill him.
Betty witnesses the murder but blanks it out of her memory. Now she is free to drive to LA and the love of her life, the doctor. As Charlie and Wesley trail her, Charlie falls for Betty - he likes her smile in a photograph.
Betty meets George (Greg Kinnear), the actor who plays the doctor, convinced that his TV life is his real life. At the same time Charlie and Wesley arrive in town, Charlie dreaming about Betty.
As others have written, Nurse Betty is one of those films where you don't know whether to laugh or cringe, and find yourself doing both. Be aware, gentle viewer, that this black comedy of two victims of the same delusions, their stories mirror images, is far more complex than the usual Hollywood movie designed to be understood by the average 6-year-old.
* Rental video, DVD: Today
* DVD features: movie (112 mins); audio commentary by director Neil LaBute and Rock, Freeman, Zellweger, Kinnear; audio commentary by producers, composer, director of photography and costume designer; "soap opera" segments; deleted scenes.
