Nurse Betty

After two acclaimed independent films in which he took a troubling look at male/female relations, director Neil LaBute moves on to less controversial ground in this dark comedy. Betty Sizemore (Renee Zellweger) is a woman from Kansas City who waits tables at a diner and is married to an insensitive thug named Del (Aaron Eckhart). One of Betty's few pleasures in life is the soap opera A Reason to Love. Her favorite character is handsome Dr. David Ravell, played by George McCord (Greg Kinnear). One night, Del gets involved in a drug deal with a pair of gangsters, Charlie (Morgan Freeman) and his sidekick Wesley (Chris Rock). Del's thoughtless racial slurs lead to an arguement, and the short-tempered Wesley attacks him; Charlie is forced to kill Del, as Betty watches. Dazed and in shock, Betty hops into her car, deciding that the time is right for a date with destiny. Betty tracks down George McCord, and soon the soap's producer Lyla (Allison Janney) is considering Betty for a part on A Reason to Love, not realizing that Betty doesn't want to play Dr. Ravell's nurse and fiance, she wants to be her. Betty, meanwhile, has no idea that the drugs that Del was trying to sell are still in her car, and that Charlie and Wesley are hot on her trail, determined to get the dope and silence her once and for all. Nurse Betty also features Kathleen Wilhoite, Crispin Glover, and Pruitt Taylor Vince. The film was shown in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the prize for Best Screenplay. — Mark Deming