Nurse Betty

Nurse Betty (2000) — watch this pitch-dark comedy online on iFILM, directed by Neil LaBute with Renée Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock and Aaron Eckhart leading a cast that commits fully to the film's deranged premise.

Betty is a Kansas diner waitress whose one comfort is a daytime soap opera — until a brutal murder in her own living room sends her mind somewhere safer. She wakes up convinced that Dr. David Ravell, the show's lead character, is real, and she sets off for Los Angeles to find him. Behind her come two hired killers, Charlie (Freeman) and Wesley (Rock), who have unfinished business with her late husband. Charlie, the older of the two, starts watching Betty and finds himself oddly reluctant to close the case.

The screenplay — written by John C. Richards and James Flamberg — took the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes in 2000, a notable win for a film this willfully weird. Zellweger grounds the comedy in genuine feeling, playing Betty not as a joke but as someone who has found her own way to survive. Stream Nurse Betty online on iFILM.