Product Description

When doctor Jerry Lovell (Liam Neeson, Oscar - nominee for "Schindler's List") discovers a young woman living alone in the backwoods of North Carolina, he is intrigued by her erratic behavior and unique pattern of speech. Together with a psychologist (Natasha Richardson), Lovell determines to pierce Nell's private world and protect her from the courts - and a life of scientific study. In a race against time and a system bent on shattering her spirit, he finds that the woman whose way of life he has sought to protect, has transformed his own forever.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3644 in DVD
• Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
• Released on: 2004-02-03
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 113 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
This film is an intelligent examination of an easygoing doctor (Liam Neeson at his teddy bear best) and his discovery of Nell (Oscar nominee Jodie Foster), a woman who was raised in the woods with no human contact except her speech-impaired mother. The movie covers a familiar "fish out of water" story unlocking Nell's soul (by deciphering her incomprehensible language) and then taking her into the modern world. What makes Nell special is the earnest work by Neeson, Natasha Richardson (as an uptight psychologist), and a rich, small array of supporting members (journeyman Nick Searcy as the town sheriff is marvelous). At its center is another extraordinary job by Foster, who also produced. Director Michael Apted (Thunderheart) brings his regular load of realism into the picture, set aglow by luscious camerawork (by Dante Spinotti) in the hills of North Carolina. Through lyrical speech and gesture, Foster makes you believe she's in another woman's body, akin to Jeff Bridges's work in Starman, a marvelous sight to behold that powers the movie. Written by William Nicholson (Shadowlands) and Mark Handley, based on Handley's play Idioglossia. --Doug Thomas

From The New Yorker
The title character of Michael Apted's film is a young woman (played by Jodie Foster) who has been brought up in a remote cabin in the North Carolina woods, and who speaks a private language. The filmmakers set up an irresistible human mystery, but the closer they get to Nell the less interesting she becomes; by the time it's over, the picture is speaking a language no one could understand. The heroine, bathed in romantic moonlight, turns into a one-woman pagan idyll, while remaining stubbornly asexual. Foster's performance, full of trick vocal effects and stylized gestures, is abstract and ultimately baffling. As you watch her swaying and gyrating sensuously to the rhythms of nature, you can't help wondering how this backwoods hermit managed to pick up all that classy Martha Graham technique. With Liam Neeson, Natasha Richardson, and Richard Libertini. Screenplay by William Nicholson and Mark Handley, from a play by Handley. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Foster's most challenging and impressive performance
While Hollywood is filled with movie stars, it can boast of only a scant few bona fide actresses. Jodie Foster, the consummate professional, is the cream of that small crop, and I respect no other actor or actress on earth as much as I respect her. Nell is a testament to her unlimited talent as well as her unmatched commitment to what she does. The character of Nell is a role most actresses would never consider taking; it's a far too difficult challenge to meet for a film that holds little promise to bring in money hand over fist. For Jodie Foster, though, what matters is the story to be told, not the glamour or the projected box office receipts. She gives an absolutely amazing performance in this film, one that has deserved far more attention than it has received; as I write this, there is not even a DVD version of the film available. If Nell is mentioned at all, it is almost always in reference to Jodie's Foster nudity in the film, and I would like to say straight out that her nudity is very tastefully done, important if not absolutely necessary for the story, and in no way provocative.

Nell is a poignant, emotional drama that saddens as well as inspires you; it is the kind of tearjerker in which your tears of empathy and concern are accented by a smile and sense of heartwarming joy. The story is set deep in the wilderness of western North Carolina, where an old woman has lived for years all by herself. People always thought she lived alone, at least, until she died and the local doctor discovered a pitiful woman-child hiding inside the shack, the only home she had ever known. Nell's mother had suffered a stroke many years earlier and spoke with a pronounced speech impediment; as a result, Nell speaks a tongue that is almost completely foreign to both the local doctor and the psychiatric professional he calls in from Charlotte. Dr. Lovell (Liam Neeson) becomes a guardian angel of sorts to Nell, fighting the courts and the mental health professionals to keep Nell in her native environment as opposed to being stuck in some institution where she will be treated as a lab subject. He gets three months to work with Nell himself, and his potential foe in the form of psychologist Paula Olsen (Natasha Richardson) becomes his ally in time, as they both work with Nell to learn her unique language and prepare her for a life completely unlike that which she has always known. In her own special way, Nell helps the two doctors as much as they help her, yet their ability to protect her from a dire future of lonely clinical existence remains in doubt up until the very end.

Neeson and Richardson are wonderful in their roles, but Jodie Foster is simply amazing. She had to learn a completely new, invented language as well as adopt a wide range of meaningful facial and body expressions and unique mannerisms in order to portray this "wild child" as a very real, very human individual. Nell is easily one of Foster's most impressive performances, and how she did not win an Oscar for this role is beyond me. It should also be noted that Foster produced as well as starred in this unforgettable film. The scenery, I might add in closing, is also spectacular. Filmed largely in the Nantahala National Forest in Graham County, North Carolina, a location just west of my own home, Nell is a beautiful sight to behold in more ways than one. Hollywood needs more powerful, moving films such as this.

Warm and magical
In "Nell," Jodie Foster wows us, as usual, with a deeply felt, passionate performance. She is Nell, the "wild child" daughter of a backwoods aphasic hermit woman, who raised her all alone with no human contact. Nell's speech is all her own -- it is a striking combination of a private language she had once shared with her deceased identical twin sister, and an imitation of her mother's speech. Her mother, as I mentioned earlier, had aphasia, which includes major speech processing problems. Nell's speech was the basis for the title of the play upon which this film was based -- "Idioglossia." (I believe, for anyone out there who's into things like this, that the correct term would have been "idiolect," as the term for a language spoken by only one person.) Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson bring constant love and warmth to Nell, and to the film, as medical/social-work professionals who attempt to break through to Nell by trying to learn her language. In the background lurk The Media, and The Scientific Establishment, both of which threaten at any moment to swoop in and make Nell's life miserable. The film builds to a heartrending and passionate, albeit rather unrealistic, courtroom self-defence speech by Nell, in which she calls the precepts of modern civilization itself into question.

Liam Neeson's performance is described by one of the editorial reviewers on this page as being "at his teddy bear best." I think that sounds slightly emasculating -- he put more positive, warm energy into this film than many actors project in their entire careers. Show some appreciation! Come on!

Anyone who enjoys this film should also be told about "Wild Child," a Francois Truffaut film that deals, through decidedly less rose-colored glasses, with a true story that was very similar to this one. Another film that has certain parallel resonances, in the sense of a "freakish" individual seeking a chance to be themself in the face of major obstacles coming from the scientific establishment, is "Charlie," starring Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom.

I thought about giving this movie four stars, only because it puts Nell in the rather unrealistic position of delivering a profound courtroom speech. I decided to go with five, however, because the basic energy of the movie is so terrific. Absolutely worth checking out.

Some reviewers missed the point.
This is an outstanding piece of work for all cast members involved, and deserves no less than five stars for that alone.

As to the story, some reviewers have complained about Ms. Foster's nudity in the film, seeing it as unecessary. It is, actually, vital to the story in that it shows her to be an unashamed child of nature, unfettered by current social mores.

Other reviewers have complained that the story is unrealistic, since it doesn't show her chopping wood, or gathering food. I would ask what, exactly, that footage would have added to the storyline. Any movie assumes certain functions are performed, such as eating, drinking, etc. Otherwise, all movies would be about twelve hours long, as we watched the characters, eat, bathe, use the toilet, etc.

The point of the movie is that Nell is reflective of humanity's loss of connection with Nature. Once we were VERY connected to Nature, but have civilised ourselves away from that connection, but Nell has not been. Through the love and caring of the two psychologists, she is made aware of modern society, and HUMAN Nature. Thus, she is able to communicate to the more "civilised" people in the film what they have been ignoring their whole lives. This is why, at the end of the film, so many people are gathered together, just to be with her. We were designed to co-exist with Nature, not fight it, and Nell is a bridge to our lost knowledge.

The movie also points out that, just because you don't understand something, or someone, it doesn't mean that they, or it, have no value.