This week I had a day off and I was watching HBO and a movie came on that I had not seen in a loooooong time!! How many of you remember the movie Nell, well after today you will!"Her heart. Her soul. Her language are a mystery...A mystery called Nell."
Nell is a 1994 drama film starring Jodie Foster as a young woman who has to face other people for the first time after being raised by her mother in an isolated cabin.
Nell Kellty's mother was paralyzed on one side, which contributed to the oddity of Nell's speech. She and her mother live in an isolated cabin in the mountains of extreme Western North Carolina. Technically, because she lives in a house, cooks her food, wears clothing and performs routine household tasks, she is not a "wild child" or feral child. She seems like one to outsiders at first, because of her terror of strangers, her ritualistic behaviors, and her unintelligible, idiosyncratic language. This language is made up of English-like phrases that are a blend of stroke-impaired speech and twin language.
Once Nell’s mother dies, she is confronted by the outside world through Dr. Jerome Lovell (Liam Neeson) and Dr. Paula Olsen (Natasha Richardson). When Lovell goes there to declare her mother dead, Nell screams and fights, but gradually adjusts to his presence as he visits more and more often. Unsure what to do, he talks to psychologist Paula Olsen in Charlotte, who wants to bring Nell to a laboratory for tests. When Lovell fights this in the courts, he and Olsen are given three months to observe Nell in her own home; when this period of observation ends, the judge will rule on Nell's fate.
This is one of those films that although it is a drama, its a film that gives a humanistic message to its viewers. So often human behavior is ignored, belitted, or barely even recognized but this film sheds light on true human nature. "The most outstanding feature of the film is Jodie Foster's performance in the title role- a remarkable one even by the standards of this talented actress. Throughout the film Foster speaks only in Nell's unearthly-sounding private language, but is able to use this, together with gestures and facial expressions, to convey a full range of emotions."
The "hook, line and sinker" of this film is its power is not shown as an obvious 'message' but more so in a deeply poetic and spiritual tone. There are three central characters (Nell, Jerry, and Paula) and the exquisite photography of the North Carolina landscapes that bring this movie to life. After watching this one will draw several different conclusions- "some may see it, for example, as a religious allegory about the redeeming power of love, while others may view it in a more literal way.
Nell is by far one of the finest and most powerful films of the nineties.
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