Soap Fiction

By Karen Parkman | Monday, October 2, 2000

Betty glanced up from the taped soap opera she was watching, interrupted. Noise broke her concentration. Without taking her eyes off of the television she rose from the chair and shut the living room door. Just as she touched the doorknob, a scream shook the house's thin walls. She peered through the doorway's crack. A man stood over her husband, bloody scalp in his hand.

'Why the f*ck did you scalp him?'

'You gave me that look.'

'What look?'

'You know, that look.'

And in Neil LaBute's dark world, 'that look' is motive enough.

Thus far, LaBute's directorial work has been admirable, if sparse. His In the Company of Men is one of the most compelling social satires of recent times. I also enjoyed Your Friends and Neighbors, despite the smarmy screen presence of Ben Stiller. Nurse Betty, however, fails to connect where his previous films excelled.

The usual directorial elements were there; Aaron Eckhart is cast as the derisive jackass, the movie's sense of morbid reality is juxtaposed with a surreal inhuman cruelty, and nearly every element of the modern macabre is flaunted with a subdued visual style. Yet the film lacks poignancy, failing to depict situations to which even a receptive audience could relate. LaBute attempted to break his mold and create a large budget Hollywood (dark) comedy; he comes up short.

LaBute's dour perspective of human nature is definitely the strong point of the film. Most scenes, such as Betty's first acting opportunity, are offbeat and witty. The broader spoof of soap operas and people who watch them is effective and ultimately condemnatory. The film depicts major Hollywood players—from the actors to producers—as self-serving, manipulative, and mean-spirited individuals.

One of Nurse Betty's minor flaws is its inclusion of situational comedy. Too often, a character adamantly stating, 'I will not do that, I will not do that and that is final' immediately precedes the character doing precisely that to which he was just so vehemently opposed. In one such scene, Chris Rock's character refuses to visit the Grand Canyon—yet he is there in the very next shot. Such situational comedy might draw a cheap laugh from the audience if it did not come off as trite and out of place.

Another discernable flaw is the film's excursive tendencies. LaBute's films are usually grandiloquent, but unlike his two previous films the excessive duration of Nurse Betty did not seem to serve some greater purpose. It did not reinforce the picayune elements of life, nor did its long pauses project a sense of tragic awkwardness, a sense found abundantly in both In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors.

The plot is original and compelling. Betty (Renée Zellweger) develops a psycho-surreal protective mechanism after she witnesses her pernicious husband's violent death. She decides to 'leave her husband' for her former fiancé, Dr. David Revell (Greg Kinnear), and travels to Los Angeles to find him. The problem is that David is a character on her favorite soap opera and Betty is unknowingly transporting a trunk full of stolen cocaine across the continental U.S. A pair of hitmen pursue the stolen drugs; one (Chris Rock) is obsessed with soap operas, the other (Morgan Freeman) with Betty . Casual violence and morbid mayhem follow in great quantities.

Considering the cast's diversity and that the principal actors were new to one another, Nurse Betty's interaction and timing are remarkable. This is straight LaBute: his stylistic influence reflects itself in each individual performance; his intense direction brings coherence and continuity to every scene.

Even if Nurse Betty's climax comes as little surprise to filmgoers, its theme of redemption is right on target.

Soap Fiction

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