Nurse Betty (2000) – Nostalgia Central

Sweet-natured Kansas waitress Betty Sizemore (Renée Zellweger) dreams of becoming a nurse.

When she witnesses her sleazy, drug-dealing, wife-abusing car salesman husband Del (Aaron Eckhart) being brutally murdered by hitmen, she suffers a psychological breakdown, enters a fugue state and becomes convinced that she is the former fiancée of Dr David Ravell (Greg Kinnear), her idol from the daytime soap opera A Reason to Love.

She now believes that the soap opera is real and travels to Los Angeles to find the hospital where he works as a cardiologist.

Meanwhile, her husband’s murderers are searching for the drugs he stole, which – as luck would have it – are stored in the boot (trunk) of the car Betty is driving.

Ageing hitman Charlie (Morgan Freeman) – who is planning his retirement after this final job – also becomes delusional about the woman he is tracking.

When Betty finally meets George McCord (the actor who plays Dr Ravell), he mistakes her intense, delusional earnestness for a brilliant piece of method acting and improvisational auditioning, and casts her on the actual show.

The film ends on a whimsical, feel-good moment as Betty is now a famous TV star, enjoying a life she could previously only have dreamed of.

Charlie
Morgan Freeman
Betty Sizemore
Renée Zellweger
Wesley
Chris Rock
Dr David Ravell/George McCord
Greg Kinnear
Del Sizemore
Aaron Eckhart
Rosa
Tia Texada
Roy
Crispin Glover
Ballard
Pruitt Taylor Vince
Lyla
Allison Janney
Sue Ann
Kathleen Wilhoite
Chloe
Elizabeth Mitchell
Darlene
Susan Barnes
Ellen
Harriet Sansom Harris
Jasmine
Lee Sung Hi
Dr Lonnie Walsh
Laird Macintosh
Blake
Steven Gilborn
Mercedes
Jenny Gago
Joyce
Sheila Kelley
Merle
Matthew Cowles
Doctor
Wayne Tippit
Grandfather
George D. Wallace
Grandmother
Lesley Woods
Chief Nurse
Cynthia Martells
ER Doctor
Alfonso Freeman
Gloria Walsh
Deborah May
Rosa’s Mother
Irene Olga López

Director
Neil LaBute