Movie review: The Good Nurse (NC16)
The story: A nurse (Jessica Chastain) at a New Jersey hospital suspects a co-worker (Eddie Redmayne) is behind a number of unexplained patient deaths. Who she would eventually expose is America’s most prolific serial killer.
By the time of his arrest in 2003, Charles Cullen was believed to have murdered some 400 patients via insulin over a 16-year nursing career at nine East Coast hospitals.
The Good Nurse, based on the 2013 book of the same name by journalist Charles Graeber, does not sensationalise or psychoanalyse. It is not even about Cullen.
The true-crime drama locates instead a much more human story in Amy Loughren and her friendship with Cullen, and Chastain and Redmayne – two actors whose showiness won them Academy Awards for The Eyes Of Tammy Faye (2021) and The Theory Of Everything (2014) respectively – impress in their underplaying.
Loughren is a dedicated caregiver and struggling single mum with a heart condition. Cullen is the new hire, gentle if a touch odd, who comes along and relieves her exhausting shifts at the emergency ward.
They develop a bond she then betrays by risking her life to stealthily gather evidence against him. Chastain gets Loughren’s anguish, fear and extraordinary courage.
Also compelling are Noah Emmerich and Nnamdi Asomugha’s dogged detective duo who enlist her help as the hospitals conspire a cover-up to avoid malpractice lawsuits.
This procedural thriller from Danish director Tobias Lindholm (A Hijacking, 2012) is gripping and chilling. It indicts the American corporate healthcare system for the deaths by allowing them. Those profit-over-ethics bureaucrats were Cullen’s abettors. Asked why he killed, Cullen says: “No one stopped me.”
Hot take: Chastain and Redmayne deliver their best performances in a real-life medical expose that drip-feeds tension.
Verdict: 4 stars
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