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movie review - Nurse Betty

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This movie surprised me; it was better than I expected by a fair margin. It's about a small-town waitress (Zellwegger as Betty) who witnesses her husband's brutal murder and loses her grip on reality. Unhappily, there's an alternate reality waiting in her favourite soap.

Believing that she's destined for a wonderful life with a fictional character, our girl Betty takes a car borrowed from her husband's used car lot and heads for L.A. Meanwhile, her disappearance as an eye-witness to the murder is publised by a local reporter (played with usual manic zest by Crispin Glover), which alerts her husband's killers to her existence. They take up the chase, and everything goes to hell.

It's well-written, contains a couple of surprises, and - unlike many Hollywood flicks - is true in its portrayal of Betty's break with reality. She 'comes to' towards the end, as a real person would (sooner or later), just in time to add one last flip.

Recommended.