20 Underrated Movies From 2000 You've Probably Never Seen

Released: 8th September 2000 (US)

While the Farrelly brothers' Me, Myself And Irene was the Renee Zellweger dark comedy about mental illness that scored big at the box office in 2000, watching it today it seems little more than tired and crass. A sharper, more novel take on similar material, Nurse Betty may have lost money at the time but today holds up far better.

Nurse Betty sees Zellweger, who won her first Golden Globe for the performance, as a diner waitress who has a nervous breakdown after witnessing the murder of her no-good drug dealing husband. When her breakdown leaves her believing she is a character in her favourite hospital soap, she travels across the country to pursue the soap's hunky doctor, all while a couple of hitmen are in pursuit seeking the drugs in the trunk of her car.

Nurse Betty is a quirky, eccentric road movie with a blithely cheerful protagonist, but the film's potential for fluffy whimsy is undercut by director Neil LaBute's customary acerbic nastiness and bursts of violence.

It's a conjunction of tones that could be jarring, but well handled it makes Nurse Betty an unusual but engaging comedy that is simultaneously cynical yet optimistic.