Spoilers herein.
`Nurse Betty' is something special, a high watermark in the abstract reasoning it demands of an audience. The complexities of what is real and fiction are pretty folded.
`Betty' relies on this, and this relies on `Tootsie.' But of the three, this is the only one that is actually fun to watch. That's because it is structured to encourage the sort of hammy acting it satirizes. And these players know what to do: Kline is always clever in his narrow way (he had actually just done a `Hamlet' of the type he goofs about), but Whoopie and Sally are at the top of their game in an Almodovar-ian way. That's where you reflect the layering of the plot (a soap about a soap) on the style of acting.
Sally deserved better roles. She knows how to do folded acting, even the kind where one fold is serious and the simultaneous other is comedic. Here, the whole cast - especially Downey - is in on the joke.
I am convinced that most of the players, and especially Sally, were doped up.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
`Nurse Betty' is something special, a high watermark in the abstract reasoning it demands of an audience. The complexities of what is real and fiction are pretty folded.
`Betty' relies on this, and this relies on `Tootsie.' But of the three, this is the only one that is actually fun to watch. That's because it is structured to encourage the sort of hammy acting it satirizes. And these players know what to do: Kline is always clever in his narrow way (he had actually just done a `Hamlet' of the type he goofs about), but Whoopie and Sally are at the top of their game in an Almodovar-ian way. That's where you reflect the layering of the plot (a soap about a soap) on the style of acting.
Sally deserved better roles. She knows how to do folded acting, even the kind where one fold is serious and the simultaneous other is comedic. Here, the whole cast - especially Downey - is in on the joke.
I am convinced that most of the players, and especially Sally, were doped up.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.