The American health care system is a nightmare, and that's without a nurse secretly poisoning hundreds of patients at multiple hospitals. The Good Nurse is about real-life serial killer Charlie Cullen, who may have murdered as many as 400 people, but it's also about the corrupt system that allowed him to get away with it for so long, rather than risking any kind of corporate liability. It was only when Cullen's trusted friend and colleague realized what was going on that he was brought to justice.
That friend and colleague is the movie's title character, Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain), an overworked night nurse at a suburban New Jersey hospital. Although she's devoted to caring for others, she has trouble caring for herself, since she hasn't worked at the hospital long enough to be eligible for health insurance or to take time off for surgery to treat a serious heart condition. She's a single mother of two young girls who comes home exhausted at the end of every night shift, and she seems to find a lifeline in her new co-worker Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne).
Charlie, it appears, is also a good nurse, treating patients with the same kind of personal attention as Amy. He also helps Amy out at home and monitors her health, while keeping her condition a secret from hospital bosses so she doesn't get fired. When two police detectives (Noah Emmerich and Nnamdi Asomugha) show up asking questions about a patient's unexplained death, Amy has no reason to suspect Charlie of any involvement.
The audience knows better, of course, and not only if they're familiar with the true story. The Good Nurse opens with a scene of a patient dying at one of Charlie's previous hospitals, while he looks on, impassive, as the camera zooms in closer and closer on his face. Redmayne never betrays what's going on in Charlie's mind, but it's clear that this is someone who operates with calculated malice. At the same time, he isn't just pretending to be Amy's friend or to care about her and her daughters, and that makes him all the more frightening.
Netflix churns out so much true-crime content (there is a documentary on this same subject premiering next month) that it would be easy to assume The Good Nurse is just another quickie dramatization of a sensationalistic story. But Danish director Tobias Lindholm brings the same level of methodical realism and attention to detail that he displayed in his previous work, including the powerful 2012 piracy drama A Hijacking. It's not surprising that Lindholm worked on David Fincher's Netflix series Mindhunter, since his meticulous approach here resembles Fincher's take on a serial killer story, 2007's Zodiac.
Chastain is excellent as Amy, conveying her weariness and her determination. Her dedication to doing what's right eclipses the bureaucrats who've given Charlie a pass, including Kim Dickens as a frustratingly obstructionist hospital administrator. Redmayne, whose mumbly, whisper-yell style of acting can be grating in roles meant to be sympathetic, is perfect as Charlie, who is inherently creepy even when behaving completely innocuously. He's believably ingratiating while also never losing the undercurrent of menace, which comes to the surface in the final act as the authorities are closing in on him.
Lindholm never wallows in the prurient details of Charlie's crimes, but he also never flinches from the impact, especially as Amy must comfort grieving families. The Good Nurse can be hard to watch at times, but that also makes it a strong counterpoint to many true-crime productions. By remaining calm and subdued rather than lurid, it achieves a greater lasting effect. ♦
The Good Nurse
