What happens when a person decides that life is merely a state of mind? If you're Betty, a small-town waitress and soap opera fan from Fair Oaks, Kansas, you refuse to believe that you can't be with the love of your life just because he doesn't really exist. After all, life is no excuse for not living. Traumatized by a savage event, Betty enters into a fugue state that allows -- even encourages -- her to keep functioning... in a kind of alternate reality.
Acting
Zellweger's unhinged sincerity sells the impossible premise
Writing
LaBute balances cruelty and tenderness like a sociopath cupid
Director
Neil LaBute
Morgan Freeman
Charlie
Renée Zellweger
Betty
Chris Rock
Wesley
Greg Kinnear
Dr. David Ravell
Aaron Eckhart
Del
Tia Texada
Rosa
Crispin Glover
Roy
Pruitt Taylor Vince
Ballard
Allison Janney
Lyla
Kathleen Wilhoite
Sue Ann
Elizabeth Mitchell
Chloe
Susan Barnes
Darlene
Harriet Sansom Harris
Ellen
Sung-Hi Lee
Jasmine
Laird Macintosh
Dr. Lonnie Walsh
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Zellweger based her soap opera scenes on studying actual daytime TV obsessively, even adopting the specific rhythm of soap dialogue.
LaBute originally wrote Charlie and Wesley as white; casting Freeman and Rock fundamentally rewrote the film's racial dynamics without changing a word of dialogue.
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