Betty Sizemore (Reneé´ Zellwieger)is a sweet waitress in a small Kansas town who is married to a sleazy auto dealer (Aaron Eckhart). On her birthday, she "borrows" a Buick LeSabre from hubby Del's lot to go out on the town with her girlfriend, while he will be "busy" with someone else. Her night out ends in a bust as the friend could not find a babysitter. Del brings his "clients" (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock) home. They happen to be interested in the contents of the missing car and believing he is lying about its whereabouts, "accidentally" scalp and murder him. Betty secretly witnesses this unfortunate event and lapses into the fantasy world of her favorite soap opera. She sallies forth on the quest to be reunited with her "ex-fiancé", a soap opera doctor (Greg Kinnear), in Los Angeles. During the pursuit of Betty, the older hit-man starts having fantasies of his own.

I was prepared to dislike this movie as I'm not a fan of Zellwieger and Rock. It wasn't helped much by extreme close-ups of Zellwieger and Freeman (I hate prolonged extreme close-ups. Everyone looks ugly that way). However, things really turned around during the the hitmen leaning on Del intercut with Betty watching a tape of the soap opera while secretly watching what was happening to Del. The dark humor kicked in and was used liberally during the entire film. Though most events were implausible and downright ridiculous, the actors pull it off with style. The characters were very interesting and poignant.

This is a hard movie to explain. It is charming and brutal at the same time. It gets into the psyche.

I give it an A.

Rated R for violence, language, sexual situations.

Nurse Betty Links

Official Site #1

Amazon dot com's Nurse Betty Site

"A Reason to Love" Official Website

Betty's Favorite Soap Opera

Morgan Freeman

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Reneé Zellweiger

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Chris Rock

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