CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

spurlockrianne This movie is charming and beautifully done. If you didn't understand this movie, you shouldn't review it. Nell was not a "feral child" and this is not a movie about mountain people. The idiocy of people really surprises me at times. It's clear that many of the people, who reviewed this movie, have not one clue about what they watched. Nell is not Forrest Gump or anything similar to Forrest and she's definitely a real human being that did not need to be immediately institutionalized. Nell was touching and it's too bad that some of you could not grasp the depth of this story. If you haven't seen this film, please watch. Don't be discouraged by the reviewers on here who, obviously, have the brain of a turnip.

tieman64 Directed by the oft underrated Michael Apted, "Nell" stars Jodie Foster as Nell, a young woman raised in an isolated cabin by an elderly woman with a severe speech impediment. Emotionally and intellectually arrested, Nell is cared for by doctors Lovell and Olsen (Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson), a pair of well-meaning academics."Nell's" first three quarters are mostly excellent. Pleasantly low key, atmospheric and shot in the gorgeous woodlands of North Carolina, the film is at its best when Lovell and Olsen take on the rolls of detectives and cryptographers, both trying to decipher Nell's strange speech patterns.Unfortunately Apted's film completely collapses in its final act. Cardboard villains, a silly "jail break" and a horrendous monologue in a courtroom, completely derail what was initially a very original picture. The film's philosophy – that Nell is "teaching" Lovell and Olsen rather than the other way around – is likewise cringe-worthy. It's a shame, because until these final moments, "Nell" was rather unique.Incidentally, "Nell" echoes a number of Apted's other works. His "Up" series was likewise preoccupied with mapping the social development of human beings, his "Coal Miner's Daughter" and "Gorillas in the Mist" likewise found young women isolated in strange woodlands, his "Enigma" revolved around cryptography and his "Thunderheart" and "Amazing Grace" hinged on rehabilitating the socially marginalised. In "Nell", our young outcast is nursed back into the fold, but ultimately rejects "modernity". She remains in the forests of North Carolina, a decision which Apted tries desperately to attach profound significance to.7.9/10 - See Francois Truffaut's "The Wild Child".

MarxNow When I put this movie on I watched it, waiting for it to develop. I rented it on a Jodie Foster search, and I did not see any reviews beforehand. I Googled Nell while the DVD was still on and what I found is that people were really moved by the film, so I paid more close attention.I agree with the reviewers who say that Nell is a story about humanity. I also agree that this is NOT a film about a society that carries evils that will corrupt her, just people who have "ulterior motives". For Liam Neeson's character, his motives are on behalf of human compassion and a desire to learn Nell's ways.This movie is held together by the interests of Dr. Lovell to keep Nell in her own environment, and Paula who also wants to interpret Nell's behavior but from a more scientific perspective. There's tension as to whether Nell will have to be committed, as she is later, but the hospital is not the proper setting for Nell. One good thing that came out of her brief stay in the NC city is that she is able to let go of her twin sister's ghost, Mae. By ghost I mean a relationship of replayed memories and emotional strongholds.One thread that I found interesting was the ailment of the sheriff's wife. She is not mentally retarded, but she is mentally ill. As a person who is diagnosed bipolar, I wonder about the similarities between the disconnect from society and the disconnect from civilization. There's another reality that can cause depression by certain triggers, or mania, and this can cycle back and forth rapidly. What was the director thinking in putting the wife there? Another way to show how people are receptive to body language from those who are perceived good?I will remember this movie. Jodie Foster is as convincing as Leonardo DiCaprio and Dustin Hoffman but her communication is more than a brief stint. There's never a forgotten moment with her, never a time where her communication couldn't be understood by those who loved her.

evanston_dad Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson play a couple of doctors who discover a wild child named Nell, a woman who's grown up completely isolated from human contact, and who as a result has developed her own language, mode of communication, etc.I can understand what drew Jodie Foster to the role of Nell, because on paper it's a serious actress's wet dream. However, the results, while earnest, are rather embarrassing. Something about the film, and Foster's performance, never quite works, and I found myself laughing at her performance, never a good sign.The whole thing is just a little too nauseating to be completely enjoyable.Grade: B-