Who payed the critics

Boring, long, and too preachy.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Stroke victim Violet Kellty passes away in her isolated North Carolina cabin. Town doctor Jerry Lovell (Liam Neeson) and Sheriff Todd Peterson (Nick Searcy) find a young woman (Jodie Foster) living in the house speaking her own language. She is Violet's daughter Nell from a rape. Lovell asks Dr. Paula Olsen (Natasha Richardson) to help him decipher her language. Olsen is looking to commit her but Lovell opposes her asking for informed consent. The judge gives them 3 months to observe her before making any decision. However her language hides the fact that she had a twin once.The movie navigates some interesting matters like Nell's sexuality but handles it without much depth. The movie ends with a Five Years Later scene. I think those five years hold something more interesting. It's also perplexing that Nell doesn't figure out some more English. The movie seems intent to keep her a virginal innocent to the end of the trial. The speech in court starts off well but quickly turns cheesy. There is a vein of cheesiness going on in this movie. Jodie Foster gives her all in this performance. It would be great if director Michael Apted dig deeper into the character.

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".

This movie is 18 now, there are reviews from zero to 10, so here is mine: Albert Einstein said "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited..." „Nell" shows that kind of knowledge which is behind the „veil of Isis" and that's because some aware people got together to make this visible.It seems that we still need „stories" to reach this, but stories are only a start and never a conclusion.„Thou are beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah" - this world is full of grace if you begin trying to say it to anyone, because all you say is to yourself.„Who's Tirzah?" Jerry Lovell asked, swimming, laughing... It always makes me shine.Alicia Foster's face at the very end shows all we need to know - during about 16 seconds. The most beautiful thing a camera ever could have been taken for; the light was made for.

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-