Black comedy is often the riskiest of all comedies, because it requires good balance between darkness and humour, which is a skill that few authors can master it. Even playwrights and film makers who made their name with black comedies can at times miss that balance. Neil LaBute did it with his 2000 film Nurse Betty.
The protagonist, played by Renée Zellweger, is Betty Sizemore, waitress from Kansas City whose life revolves around television soap opera Reason to Live. Obsessed with the television show, she is oblivious that her husband Del (played by Aaron Eckhart), a car dealer, cheats on her and knows even less that Del’s additional source of income involves drug trade. The latter is cause of Del’s demise when Sizemore’s home get invaded by two hitmen – Charlie (played by Morgan Freeman) and Wesley (played by Chris Rock). They torture and brutally murder Del in order to get their hands on drugs which Del stashed in Betty’s car. Betty has witnessed horrific event and, as a result, had mental break and began to believe that she was actually character from Reason to Live. She travels to Los Angeles where she assumes her fictional identity and, through series of coincidences, even comes to the show’s set, where its main star George McCord (played by Greg Kinnear) mistakes her for aspiring actress being in character. After realising that she is a witness and probably has the drugs, Charlie and Wesley come to Los Angeles to look for her.
Nurse Betty was made in independent production and premiered at Cannes Film Festival where it was received well by critics and won Award for Best Original Screenplay (written by James Flamberg and John C. Richards). Renée Zellweger later won Golden Globe for Best Actress in Musical or Comedy. This could be partly explained by LaBute’s film being seen as satirical comedy trying to mock obsession of average Americans with their popular culture and inability to differentiate between the world of fantasy and reality. This theme, explored in much more successful manner in The Truman Show, could have been basis for plenty of gags, but this opportunity is mostly wasted. One of the reasons is LaBute’s misanthropy and refusal to make any character likeable, with possible exception of Betty who functions more as an object of pity than conventional protagonist. Even worse is murder scene which is so brutal and shocking that any humour that comes after that looks out of place in what could be actually a very serious and dark film. Most positive things about Nurse Betty can be found in the cast, most notably Morgan Freeman who plays complex and unusual character of hitman. Zellwegger is even better in one of the most demanding roles of her career. Her efforts, however, aren’t enough to make this film recommendable to viewers other than her most loyal fans or those who don’t mind more darkness than humour in Hollywood comedies.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417 Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax y Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
