The Good Nurse debuts in select theaters on Oct. 19, and streams on Netflix on Oct. 26.
Based on a true story, The Good Nurse exposes the hypocrisy and self-interest embedded in a healthcare system that’s all about profit. A political thriller as much as a criminal one, it digs into the reckless abandon shown by hospitals when it comes to patient care… and how a cold-blooded killer can use that to their advantage.
Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) is at once a caring friend and a taught, tense oddity. There’s something different about him right from the off, and he carries a nervous tension that’s only ever heightened in the stillness of quieter moments. It’s all about control – to both Charlie and director Tobias Lindholm, who works with long, slow zooms and itching incidental sounds to create a slowly unraveling, deeply compelling story.
Although Cullen is the focus of intrigue, Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain) embodies the horrific failures of the healthcare system with the quiet discomfort of a woman who’s doing her best. She’s a nurse – a good nurse. And as her own health issues muddy the waters, she unwittingly steps out of the light and into Cullen’s web of deceit. Thankfully, she isn’t entirely helpless.
Chastain gives a stoic dignity to her performance, even in the face of death itself. It’s more than that, though. Amy is a beacon of hope in a world that increasingly proves it doesn’t care. The hospitals are supposed to look after their patients… but with Cullen leaving a string of jobs at various hospitals in his wake, it seems that the hospitals want to cover up what’s been going on just as much as he does. Enter detectives Baldwin (Nnamdi Asomugha) and Braun (Noah Emmerich) – the two cops assigned to one of his patients’ deaths out of a mere formality.
Obviously, as they begin to dig a little deeper, they realize all is not what it seems, but their case often hits frustrating brick walls as the hospital conspiracy closes in. The almost eerie stillness of it all is often punctuated by small outbursts of anger and frustration, perfectly orchestrated by Lindholm for maximum effect. The Good Nurse is a well-crafted, meticulous story that creaks with tension from one scene to the next, and it’s at its best when those quieter scenes eventually reach a roaring crescendo. It’s no coincidence that Norwegian musician Biosphere’s slow, pacing score swings between dread and serenity.
The real story is drip-fed to us through smaller details, things you might almost miss… but it’s all there. Much like the real-life Cullen, Redmayne rarely lets his guard down, only showing us glimpses of what lies beneath the stillness in those rare moments in between. Lindholm uses a light touch throughout, giving us looks at Cullen’s grasp for control in smaller, subtle moments: a locked car door, a creaking tension in his hands. Equally, Chastain is always on edge throughout, constantly pulled in several different directions as a result of her circumstances. There’s an undeniable strength within her that Chastain manages to dig deep for, but it’s there.
The script by Krysty Wilson-Cairns drags us slowly and inevitably toward a strangely measured conclusion.
Lindholm uses Amy’s personal situation to great effect – her struggles with cardiomyopathy externalize her own inward struggles as she wrestles with the mounting reality of what Cullen has been up to. A recurring motif highlights this: the unmistakable sound of an ECG monitor.
The film opens with the sound of a patient flatlining, the ECG beeps punctuating the gravity of the situation, and then later, we see Amy hooked up to one as she begins to realize the truth about Cullen. It’s a neat trick that clues us into her feelings as she puts on a façade to keep Cullen placid, but the best is yet to come. The sound of a car door beep later in the film echoes that same ECG noise… but with a very different meaning this time around, played for stunning effect by Lindholm. Moments like this are sparse but serve to heighten the mounting dread as the script by Krysty Wilson-Cairns drags us slowly and inevitably toward a strangely measured conclusion.
The Good Nurse is a stylishly crafted thriller that peers into the chest cavity of the U.S. healthcare system and tries to work out what’s going wrong. Unfortunately, it’s more of an autopsy, as Lindholm comes to some damning conclusions. A horrific intensity in Redmayne’s deeply unsettling performance offsets the quiet stoicism of Chastain, creating a stand-off between the uncaring system that allows these horrors to happen and the good nurses who only want to help. It’s a slowly affecting thriller that will leave you breathless.
About Post Author
