There's a certain quality about Nurse Betty that's hard to explain. It's dark, funny, quirky, and enjoyable all at the same time. The combination of Morgan Freeman with Chris Rock is about as unconventional as the premise of a waitress (Renee Zellweger) witnessing a traumatic experience and the resulting post traumatic stress sending her into a fantasy world within her favorite soap opera. After stealing one of her husband's cars, with the trunk filled with narcotics, and setting out on a cross-country exodus to be with her one true love, Dr. David Revell (a.k.a. George - played by Greg Kinnear). Close on her heels, Charlie (Freeman) and Wesley (Rock) trying to reclaim the narcotics. But somehow while Betty (Zellweger) is on her search for her true love, so is Charlie, as he becomes infatuated with Betty and her mysterious (to him) ways.

Confusing? While the plot may be a little bit off for a good part of the movie, it's not terribly difficult to follow. And that is probably what makes up most of the charm of this movie. Zellweger is spectacular as she plays the disenchanted Nurse Betty in her search for her life-long love, problem is, George (the doctor) goes along with her charades thinking that she's just trying to audition to get on the soap opera, which will eventually lead to a huge disappointment for one of them. On top of that, Wesley is trying to comprehend his partner's strange actions while they search for Betty - don't worry the plot gets much more complicated, but equally good.

As we follow the two love-struck characters, Charlie and Betty as they search for their love, the parallels are almost eerie. And as we watch these two in their search, being misunderstood by the rest of the world, it's almost hard to figure out whether you want to laugh at the movie for the funny parts, or side with the characters and feel their heartache.

Nurse Betty is a complicated movie, with various sub-plots and essentially, is very dark, yet at times, you forget it's a dark comedy and just fall right into the plot, as both Zellweger and Freeman do spectacular jobs of drawing you in and feeling exactly what they are as they search for the one thing left that has any meaning in their lives. While it may be hard to follow for people used to the standard action or romantic comedies in theaters these days (as were my friends I saw it with), if you can look beneath the story and into the emotions of the characters and understand what they are going through, it will provide for a much better movie-going experience to one of the best movies of the year.

Genres: Comedy
Rated: R
Runtime: 109 minutes
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