Nell *** (1994, Jodie Foster, Liam Neeson, Natasha Richardson) – Classic Movie Review 6094

Liam Neeson stars as a small town doctor in North Carolina, who finds a grown-up wild child (Jodie Foster) in a remote woodland cabin, who has grown up in the woods away from people. The beautiful young hermit woman Nell has lots of secrets.

Based on a play called Idioglossia by Mark Handley, director Michael Apted’s good-natured 1994 movie is conscientious, carefully written, well made and decently performed. However, it does tend to plod along with rather less than enthralling and inspiring results. Where is the fire, the passion, the pain?

Foster offers a showy tour-de-force turn, apparently looking for an Oscar that didn’t come, though she did gain her Oscar fourth nomination, nominated as Best Actress. Neeson gives a quietly controlled performance, though it is dull to the point of being boring.

For all its warm-hearted virtues, the result is little more than an average TV movie. Even the movie’s interesting idea has been done before and better in other movies, François Truffaut’s L’Enfant Sauvage [The Wild Child] best of all.

Also in the cast are Natasha Richardson, Richard Libertini, Nick Searcy, Robin Mullins and Jeremy Davies.

It is written by Mark Handley and William Nicholson, shot by Dante Spinotti, produced by Jodie Foster and Renée Missel, and scored by Mark Isham.

Foster won Best Actress Oscars for The Accused (1988) and  The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and also has a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Taxi Driver (1976).

Neeson and Natasha Richardson got married and had two children, but she died in a tragic skiing accident in 2009.

Handley based his play on his time living in the Cascade Mountains in western North America in the Seventies, and the story of twins Poto and Cabengo, who developed a secret language.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6094

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