Nell: Movie Review

By Chad Fleming

The movie Nell was a very good movie which really tears on your heart-strings. Jody
Foster plays the role of Nell almost perfectly. The movie takes place in the Appalachian Mountains in the 1980s with Nell caring for herself in a small cabin outside of the city. For a while Nell lives on her own because there is no one left to take care of her when her care taker dies. The police check on the cabin after they notice the women who lived there hasn’t been seen in days. Eventually, the police find that Nell’s caregiver has died and Jerry decided to check in on Nell and keep an eye on her. Jerry notices that Nell doesn’t have good social skills because of the way she was raised, which was basically on her own.

Despite the fact that Nell has limited social skills and the ability to communicate, Jerry sees potential in her because of the abilities she does possess. Nell is able to work and cut down and take some care of herself so a judge orders Dr. Jerry to watch her for 3 months. During three months of evaluating Nell, Jerry finds the remains of her sister in the woods when he follows her to where the bones lay at rest. Nell finds comfort in the fact that she can always visit her sister and remember the memories they had together growing up. At the end of the three months the judge orders that Nell be taken to a hospital because of behavior she showed while shopping at a store for food and it doesn’t go well. Nell is unable to accept life in the hospital and is taken away by Jerry and to a hotel. After a short time Jerry and Paula take Nell back to court for a competency hearing and the judge decides to let Nell move back to the cabin and take care of herself.

This movie was sad in the fact that Nell had no choice in how she was raised or
what would happen with her life. I did get satisfaction that Nell proved almost everyone wrong by being able to do things on her own. Nell knew how she wanted to live and found a way to communicate with Jerry and Paula. This movie shows that the way a person is raised has huge affects on a person. Because Nell is not like everyone else in society, she is tagged as being stupid and is thought of as an “animal”. Nell proved to everyone that even though she grew up in
the wild with little care, she had emotions and was human. I loved the movie.