The Good Nurse

It always adds to the viewing experience when a movie is (accurately) based on disturbing real life events, and that's what makes this Netflix slow burner so much more compelling.

Of course it also helps when you get two Oscar winning heavyweights in Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne as the two leads, and unsurprisningly, these two legit A-listers are absolutely brilliant in this one.

While the story largely focuses on the lives and relationship between two ICU nightshift nurses, what it's really about is the greed, self preservation and insanity of the money obsessed American healthcare system, where the mantra is very much "profit over life".

It's this underlying theme coupled with the fact that mass murderer nurse Charles Cullen (Redmayne) was responsible for up to 400 hospital murders (but charged with just 29) that keep you gripped and in a state of shocked disbelief as the film slowly progresses.

Eddie's portrayal of Cullen is aptly understated, creepy and foreboding while Chastain's Angel of mercy whistleblower is steely strong, compassionate and right on the money. A shout out as well to the rest of the small supporting cast who also do a stellar job.

Yes it's dark, dour and slow moving but the artistry and true life events on show here overrides all this - it's a must-see movie folks, because let's face it, this type of harsh reality relates to us all in one way or another.

If you are lucky to have a free, integrity based healthcare system count your blessings... you should after watching this! Heartfelt recommended viewing.

In true-crime drama "The Good Nurse" Jessica Chastain & Eddie Redmayne (two superb talents at the top of their games) are nurses in a New Jersey hospital ICU where unbeknownst to them a mysterious death on their ward is under investigation (involving cops Nnamdi Asumgha & Noah Emmerich (and hospital 'Risk Manager' Kim Dickens)). As different facts slowly come to light the cops help Chastain begin to realise that her kindly close friend may actually be a killer... even a serial killer. Excellently directed with slow-burn tension by Tobias Lindholm, and written at good, engaging & growing pace by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, this is high-quality film-making.

To me the standout of this film were the performances. But first looking at the movie itself it was a slow build up in the first half hour till charles comes onto the scene. I'm not sure though this film works as a thriller or mystery its more of a dark drama and if labeled as such would be better understood. But as based on real life films go this does at atleast do the job and is still an interesting watch. Eddie redmayne playes charlie, the nurse the film is about. He comes off as creepy and off putting making it a great role that he filled well. The same goes for jessica chastaine as amy, the other nurse who suspects something is up after a pateints death. Her performances is just as good and both are really good. Overall an interesting film to watch. Little slow in places but overall ok.

Set in 2003 at Parkfield Memorial Hospital, Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain) is a single mother with two daughters working as night nurse in the ICU who suffers from a heart condition but is without Health Insurance and must continue working long hours while keeping it a secret for the next few months before she's qualified for insurance. The hospital is soon joined by nurse Charles "Charlie" Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) who strikes up a friendship with Amy and even helps her during her cardiac episodes at his own expense. However when the death of a patient is put under internal review by Parkfield's risk mitigator, Linda Garran (Kim Dickens), the hospital brings in homicide detectives Danny Baldwin (Nmamdi Asomugha) and Tim Braun (Noah Emmerich), per the directives of the CDC for suspicious hospital deaths but are massively uncooperative only bringing them in 8 weeks after their internal review and with the body already released to the family and cremated. However, when Braun and Baldwin begin examining Charlie's history, they come to believe he may have been involved in the death as does Amy.

The Good Nurse is an adaptation of the 2013 true crime book, The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder by Charles Graeber that details serial killer Charles Cullen. While originally setup at Lionsgate, Lionsgate eventually decided they would no longer be involved and rights to the film were picked up by Netflix. The film is the English language debut for Danish director Tobias Lindholm whose previous credits such as A Hijacking and A War have earned Lindholm considerable acclaim and the latter even scoring Academy Award nominations. With all those elements it's pretty obvious Netflix intends for this to be an awards contender for the Fall movie season and I think this is an undeniably strong prestige piece.

The Good Nurse features some terrific turns by reliable staples Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne who both feel really at home in their roles. Redmayne is really good as Charlie and while he does capture that coldness you expect during the very few death scenes that are actually on display in the film, the movie looks at Charlie in between those scenes with his genuinely concerned and nurturing attitude he carries towards Amy setting up the tragedy of this situation as the early scenes between him and Chastain almost make you forget for a moment who he is. The movie doesn't frame this situation as a thriller and avoids being exploitative with no lingering on death scenes and sidestepping some of the tropes of lesser serial killer films by framing the story as one of systemic buck passing that allowed Charlie to move from hospital to hospital and no action ever taken to prevent him from continuing for fear it would open these hospitals to lawsuits. The movie's very much an inditement on the nature of the healthcare industry complete with the dramatic irony (that was unfortunately true to life) of Amy being a nurse who can't afford treatment for herself. Jessica Chastain is really good in the role of Amy Loughren and she sells her performance against Redmayne quite effectively. Tobias Lindholm's direction of the film is also quite strong and with its more naturalistic filmmaking style it avoids making itself feel like a TV procedural or thriller by keeping focus on the human element.

The Good Nurse is a fantastic English language debut for Lindholm and continues the strong work for Chastain and Redmayne. I highly recommend this film and not just to true crime enthusiasts.

Jessica and Eddie did extremely well with the dialogue they were given. With less talented actors, this movie would have been a complete bore. I think those who wrote the screenplay did a great job at portraying the harsh conditions of healthcare workers in the 90s/ early 2000s. However, the characters were underdeveloped, which was an absolute shame because I was left with so many questions.

They spent a lot of screen time building Amy and Charles's friendship, but not enough time giving us an idea of why Charle and Amy were the way they were. Why was Amy a single mother? Why did Charles keep getting hired with such a sketchy background? Why was the hospital covering for him? These questions are never answered and it made me wonder how much of this movie was real.

Don't worry, all of those answers are easily googlable, but I feel like if those questions were given answers in the movie, I would have been much more invested. I felt like it was wasting Jessica and Eddie's talent by not diving into their characters more because the acting is so good.

Like when Amy is starting to get suspicious of Charles, even though Charles's behavior doesn't change, I was scared of him. Amy's fear displays enough for the audience but hides enough to protect herself from Charles, making you terrified for her and creeped out by Charles. Which screws with your head because Charles's behavior doesn't change. He's still as sweet as he always was, but instead of finding it charming as you did at the beginning of the movie, you slowly start finding it creepy.

Perhaps if this movie was a miniseries, I would have liked it more since it wouldn't have left so much of the real story out. As a movie, it just glossed over too much. That being said, if you're interested in the case of Charles Cullen and enjoy a great performance, you'll enjoy this movie.