Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 28, 1994 TAG: 9412280059
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Co-producer and star Jodie Foster does convincing work with a difficult part, and she gets able support from both sides of the camera. But her best efforts are undercut by a story that gets consistently weaker as it goes along.
Nell (Foster) is a young woman who has been raised in near isolation by a disabled mother. The two live in a cabin without electricity or running water deep in the North Carolina mountains. When her mother dies, Nell is "discovered" by Jerry Lovell (Liam Neeson), the local doctor. He doesn't know what to make of this frightened woman who speaks a language of her own invention and lives in a world of her own fantasies. She's an innocent who seems to know nothing of life beyond her cabin.
Lovell seeks advice and assistance from a psychiatrist, Dr. Olsen (Natasha Richardson) in Charlotte. The two of them wind up spending several months observing Nell and her environment, and learning the complicated secrets behind her condition.
That part of the film - roughly the first two thirds - is a fascinating three-character study. It's also a psychological mystery that carefully reveals Nell's character.
Despite the exotic setting and situation, that part of the script by William Nicholson and Mark Handley (based on Handley's play) is believable and surprising. It's so involving that you want to know what's going to happen next. Director Michael Apted handles the material with a real feeling for these individuals and the mountain landscape.
But once the film becomes concerned with larger questions - how will Nell react to the late 20th century; where should she live and what, if anything, should be done with her - it becomes a collection of Hollywood cliches. The conflict is reduced to the saintly rural girl vs. insensitive city folk.
The big finish, staged in a courtroom setting, is patronizing nonsense, and what comes after it is shamelessly sappy.
Perhaps that schism is inevitable when filmmakers force an unconventional story into the conventional Hollywood formula that demands certain kinds of villains and certain kinds of endings. But it's still a disappointment after such a promising start.
Nell ** 1/2
A Twentieth Century Fox release playing at the Tanglewood Mall Theatre. 110 min. Rated PG-13 for nudity, language, subject matter.
by CNB