"Nell" is a good movie, but unfortunately every movie needs an antagonist. In this movie there were a few antagonists: the media (of course), a punk delivery boy, and a doctor at a big hospital. I think "Nell" created antagonists for the sake of drama. There was no need for the delivery boy to be an antagonist, or the media, or especially the doctor. "Nell" is a movie that deals in a gray area in which I don't think there is a right and wrong.
We found Nell (Jodie Foster) placing flowers on her dead mother's eyes much like some cultures did with coins over the eyes of their deceased. Soon we discovered that Nell was an extremely sheltered woman who hadn't socially or emotionally matured and her speech was so poorly developed that it was a wonder if she even was speaking English.
Being that she was now alone, ostensibly, without the skills to take care of herself, the state had to step in. One big hospital sent Dr. Paula Olsen (Natasha Richardson) to evaluate her while opposing them was the pure-hearted Dr. Jerry Lovell (Liam Neeson). The hospital was out to prove that she'd need professional care while Jerry was out to prove that she could survive on her own.
I happened to see the answer as somewhere in the middle and I was shocked that that hadn't even been explored. In other words, couldn't it have been that she would need professional help up until she could properly care for herself?
I think the movie limiting us to those binary choices was its biggest flaw. The movie made Jerry the protagonist, but told from a different perspective Jerry could've been the antagonist looking to fight the big hospital just because.
"Nell" was a nice movie--moving at times--and I don't want to go so far as to call it disingenuous, so I'll say it was narrow in its scope.
We found Nell (Jodie Foster) placing flowers on her dead mother's eyes much like some cultures did with coins over the eyes of their deceased. Soon we discovered that Nell was an extremely sheltered woman who hadn't socially or emotionally matured and her speech was so poorly developed that it was a wonder if she even was speaking English.
Being that she was now alone, ostensibly, without the skills to take care of herself, the state had to step in. One big hospital sent Dr. Paula Olsen (Natasha Richardson) to evaluate her while opposing them was the pure-hearted Dr. Jerry Lovell (Liam Neeson). The hospital was out to prove that she'd need professional care while Jerry was out to prove that she could survive on her own.
I happened to see the answer as somewhere in the middle and I was shocked that that hadn't even been explored. In other words, couldn't it have been that she would need professional help up until she could properly care for herself?
I think the movie limiting us to those binary choices was its biggest flaw. The movie made Jerry the protagonist, but told from a different perspective Jerry could've been the antagonist looking to fight the big hospital just because.
"Nell" was a nice movie--moving at times--and I don't want to go so far as to call it disingenuous, so I'll say it was narrow in its scope.