Soft soaping Neil LaBute

>> The chronicler of bourgeois cruelty moves into the mainstream with his hilarious comedy, Nurse Betty

by JOANNE LATIMER

Has the 1990s master of amoral cinema gone soft? What's he doing, directing a comedy with amiable sweethearts like Renée Zellweger and Greg Kinnear? When Neil LaBute arrived at Cannes in May to screen Nurse Betty, the reaction was slack-jawed disbelief. Maybe it's a joke, some suggested, while waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It never dropped. LaBute screened Nurse Betty to an incredulous, and admiring, audience. The man who's responsible for two of the most black-hearted exposés on psychological cruelty hadn't gone soft--just cheeky and satirical. His films from the late 1990s, In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, bare little resemblance to Nurse Betty, a road movie about two gangsters pursuing a delusional soap-opera addict.

"But you can still tell it's one of my films," insisted LaBute, a master of the deadpan. "There's a woman running for her life from bad men. That's a pretty big red flag."

Zellweger plays Betty, a waitress at a diner in Kansas. She has a repulsive husband, Del, played by LaBute-regular Aaron Eckhart. Del brings home two criminals to bicker about a stolen car. Someone's pride gets wounded, someone gets dead and Betty is the hapless witness.

Her reaction? She slips into a fantasy world where she's the fiancée of Dr. David Ravell (Kinnear), a character on a soap called A Reason to Love. Del's criminal associates (Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman) end up chasing Betty, who doesn't know about some loot stashed in her '97 Buick.

Surreal celluloid

It would be a stretch to make the comparison to Fellini's White Sheik--because of the gangster stuff--but spotting Fellini influences is the biggest spectator sport at Cannes, and LaBute was asking for it. He acknowledged the debt quickly, easing into a tub chair and sipping an Evian after the press screening of Nurse Betty. His posse of actors was nearby, comparing hangovers and adding their two cents.

In person, LaBute played the dry intellect, preferring to let his stars goof around and giggle. The giggling had a lot to do with Chris Rock, who fidgeted in his chair when he wasn't levelling you with a hard look and a joke.

"Where's Morgan [Freeman]?" asked Rock, looking around. "You know, he was cool--when he wasn't feeling my ass." Kinnear doubled over laughing and LaBute smiled like a proud parent. Rock jumped all over a question about attending the famous French film festival.

"Well, as you know, I was raised just a few blocks from the Riviera," he quipped, shifting into an accent from the American deep south. "Everyone's REAL friendly here, friendly like southerners."

LaBute shot him a lightning-bolt look, then made a purposeful shift in his chair, signalling his readiness to chat about Nurse Betty. LaBute became unnaturally animated when asked about the gangster genre.

"Hitmen are a staple of U.S. indie cinema. I like the impulse, but it's dangerous ground because it's material that has been done a lot lately and done really well by a number of people, most famously, of course, by Tarantino," said LaBute. "I had to wonder if Chris's character could win the audience over. Then, I wondered, could I give him a violent death? Could I make him violent?"

Zellweger, slumped quietly in her chair, absent-mindedly stroked her ponytail at the mention of hair. "I had big bangs for this film," she said, elbowing Rock in the ribs. "Really, really big bangs, combed three inches high and sprayed with glue. Each night it would take me ages to comb it out."

"Say that with an English accent," Rock goaded, referring to her upcoming role in Bridget Jones's Diary. The casting call led some Brits to cry foul, saying the famous Englishwoman's role should have gone to one of their own. Zellweger had been living in London for two months to acquire an English accent for her stint as Jones, the neurotic Londoner. In true method style, she worked in a publishing house to get into the role.

"It was the first time I've ever used my college degree," said Zellweger. "ME TOO!" Rock cut in, nodding furiously. "All those student loans are finally paying off."

Zellweger changed the topic: "You know, I have never really been a big soap fan, except on sick days at school."

LaBute pretended to take offence: "You know, I desperately wanted to cast a British actress for the part of Betty."

Knocking the New Yorker

Anyone who wanted to know more about LaBute lucked out when The New Yorker did a profile on the director last year. The article went into some depth about his upbringing, his work as a drama teacher and his religion. He's a Mormon. His wife is even more of a Mormon. LaBute's dark films, then, could understandably be a source of conflict in his personal life. Did the article get it wrong?

"Yeah, they got it wrong," LaBute concluded dispassionately. "And they distorted the stuff about conflict with my dad and made it more dramatic. It wasn't so epic. Sure, we had a semi-dysfunctional growing-up scenario, but who didn't?"

LaBute's mom was a big soap fan when he was a child, but that wasn't where the film came from. Nurse Betty is the first film LaBute didn't write himself. He was taken by the idea of lampooning the soaps, but was ultimately more interested in satirizing our celebrity-obsessed culture.

"We become over-engaged with our actors and pursue a life that crosses the line," said LaBute, motioning toward the throng of photographers waiting to snap his cast's photo outside our sacred interview area. "It's not me they're waiting for."

Yes, they were, in part. Nurse Betty has brought LaBute closer to mainstream Hollywood, where he'll mix with an entirely different group of friends and neighbours--hopefully the next target for one of his old-style shredders.

Nurse Betty opens Friday, Sept. 8

Renée's rising star

by MATTHEW HAYS

Renée Zellweger pulls back her hair as she sits down to chat about Nurse Betty, the latest casting coup in her brilliant career. Ever since Jerry Maguire, in which Zellweger conveyed a character full of both strength and vulnerability, she has been continuing to win over audiences and critics.

But the recent buzz has primarily been about her new relationship with Me, Myself & Irene co-star Jim Carrey. Zellweger contends the relationship began after shooting stopped. But she's quick to add that she was intrigued by his talent before shooting commenced.

"I was mesmerized by Man on the Moon. The fact that Jim gave this person dimension, gave him an interpretation, a person that no one knew. Even Andy Kaufman's family members were blown away by the characterization Jim did." She goes on to say that Carrey is "a very extraordinary, substantive person."

Zellweger doesn't seem fazed by the intense media scrutiny she and Carrey are under, but concedes: "There are certain things you don't want to share with everyone. You might want to take a walk in the park and not worry. But I really learned how to handle a lot of it when I was out shopping with Meryl Streep once. A woman came up to her and really gushed and said how much she loved Meryl's work, and after it was all over, Meryl just turned to me like nothing had happened. It had just become a fact of life to her--commonplace. That was an important thing for me."

Zellweger says she stumbled into acting when she was an undergraduate in a journalism program. "We had to take an arts class, so I took theatre. And I realized how much I liked it. I wanted to pursue it. I did, and things began to happen. I just kept doing it."

She's certainly hitting her stride with Nurse Betty, in which Zellweger perfects her act as an entirely sweet, ultra-naïve innocent. Her performance, which is incredibly endearing, borders on the miraculous. It blew away critics at its Cannes premiere and will probably earn her an Oscar nod.

Which begs the question: does Zellweger consider this to be her best work to date? A lengthy pause. "I don't know. But it sure was a great way to have my first Cannes experience, that's for sure."