After a summer chock full of disappointing films, only partially redeemed by clay chickens and Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike corpses, it is a relief to welcome the arrival of director Neil LaBute's strange but wonderful "Nurse Betty."

Twisted and sweet, violent and surreal, "Nurse Betty" revolves around a resident of Fair Oaks, Kansas named Betty (Renee Zellweger) who is not a nurse, but a waitress. Stuck in a marriage with a jerk (convincingly played by a ratty Aaron Eckhart), the sweet and naive Betty has never even left her hometown and is content to daydream while watching her favorite soap, "A Reason To Love."

Betty's life is turned upside down, however, when she witnesses her husband's murder. Having just watched a scene of her show, she represses the killing and suddenly takes off for L.A. in search of Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear), a character on her soap whom she now believes to be her ex-fiance.

Hot on her trail are the killers, the experienced Charlie (Morgan Freeman) and the unstable Wesley (Chris Rock) who learn that Betty is the sole witness to the crime. Betty, meanwhile, arrives in L.A. and not only comes face-to-face with her dream doctor, but is offered a part on the show and lives a life of excitement that she never thought possible.

LaBute strikes all the right notes with this dark comedy, an offbeat mock-soap opera. What keeps the film above the suds are creativity (including a hilarious dream sequence between Freeman and Zellweger) and believability. While the plot takes unlikely twists and turns, the characters are so real and appealing that little else matters.

Renee Zellweger is a dependable actress ("Jerry Maguire," "One True Thing") who doesn't always select reliable material ("The Bachelor," "Me, Myself & Irene"). Betty, however, is her best role to date. She not only has gifted comic timing, but the ability coat the character with sweetness and naivete without making her seem foolish. She also is somehow able to remind us that in the midst of her very funny performance, Betty is a sick woman who has repressed the gruesome murder of her husband.

The supporting players are on par with Zellweger. Morgan Freeman is perfect as Charlie, the thief who becomes obsessed with the woman he is following. He's a tough cookie, but Freeman manages to give us a peek of vulnerablity and likeability of the killer as well. And Kinnear matches the suave wit he displayed in "Sabrina" in the tricky role of George, an actor playing a doctor. There are also great cameos by Harriet Sansom Harris, Allison Janney, and George McFly himself, Crispin Glover.

But the main catch of "Nurse Betty" is LaBute's ability to surprise. From the graphic scalping of the murder sequence to the oddly tender relationship between Charlie and Betty, the film is a mixed bag of humor, sorrow and suspense. Betty's journey is worth following. While she leaps from a world of loneliness and boredom into one of glamour and confusion, we too are taken into a new world--one of gritty, ambitious filmmaking, highlighted by great performances unusual film flair.