This case history is useful for the story, because Nell must be able to speak if she is to give us her message - which is, as in many such stories, that the natural is better than the civilized.
"You are hungry for silence," Nell tells her friends.
Despite its predictable philosophy, however, "Nell" is an effective film, and a moving one. That is largely because of the strange beauty of Jodie Foster's performance as Nell, and the warmth of the performance by Liam Neeson, as a doctor who finds himself somehow responsible for her. Along with Natasha Richardson, who has a somewhat thankless role as Neeson's partner in the case, they inhabit the characters so fully that it's only later, after withdrawing from the emotional experience, that we recognize the movie's fairly shaky premises.
The movie takes place in a wilderness where Nell was living with her mother. It's a little unclear how they survived; a motorcycle delivery boy drops off provisions, but, still, the movie glosses over a lot of details. No matter; what's important is that Nell lives alone and, once her existence is discovered, she is a potential victim as news helicopters swarm overhead and the curious come calling.
She is perfectly able to take care of herself in isolation, but unfamiliar with civilization. Of course civilization insists on finding her deprived. Neeson and Richardson, taken to the site by the local sheriff, establish their headquarters on a houseboat anchored near Nell's cabin, and begin to observe her and try talking with her.
At first her language sounds like nonsense, but eventually a logic emerges, and finally Neeson is able to break down her reserve and win her confidence.
Of course Nell is a fully grown, attractive woman; bathing naked in the mist of a woodland river, she looks uncannily like a model for a Maxfield Parrish print. Neeson, as the doctor, is not blind to her charms. But somehow her innocence and his ethics (and Richardson's presence) defuse the situation, and even in a skinny-dipping episode (necessary to deal with Nell's "fear of men") there is a kind of chastity to the situation.
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