The Good Nurse Review

Controversy runs rampant throughout the matters of The Good Nurse, a piece as reliant on Jessica Chastain as it is on the core story. There is, unfortunately, a part of The Good Nurse always associated with the emotional manipulation of sterile hospital walls. Discomfort comes forth for anyone that has seen the inside of those walls for too long, and The Good Nurse knows it. Director Tobias Lindholm knows it as he experiments with where a shot or angle can take his true crime adaptation. Attempting to pull sincerity out of true crime is a difficult, messy trial for any director, but pairing Lindholm with Chastain marks a tremendous effort that comes close to marking a return to form for the latter.

Some time in the wilderness of action features and poorly constructed horror features, Chastain’s return to what is, essentially, a popularity piece, marks a good turn of form from her. Starring as Amy Loughren provides a performance that is dependent on the usual throes of the hardworking single mother and the medical troubles that plague her and her finances. More a study of how abruptly fearsome the American healthcare system is, those from beyond the pond will be stunned into the secrecy needed over a heart condition, the lack of insurance that comes from it and the legal headache it would create should something go wrong. The Good Nurse doesn’t quite forget about that as it focuses in on its true crime stages, but it certainly takes a back seat.

Charles Cullen (here played by Eddie Redmayne) will be a pop figure for those that engage with the usual suspects of true crime. Casting Redmayne as the disturbed serial killer brings about not just a push against the typecast for the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them star but a worrying normalcy of making serial killers and their horrid actions something akin to attractive stars functioning on a vaguely creepy aesthetic. Zac Efron and Evan Peters spring to mind for those modern turns, slight and indistinct physical similarities between them, relying on a devious, ghoulish string of information that will elicit some undefined fear. Redmayne, to his credit, is very good here. His best role in some time, and yet another one under that Netflix banner.

That is the best possible outcome for something like The Good Nurse, though. Good performances lead the way and the dull, grey lighting that drives Lindholm’s direction works well for this form of moviemaking. The true crime genre is the last thing that needs a revival, for all the sycophant rulings that come from being involved with it, yet some adaptations are starting to prove their worth. The Good Nurse is one of those, a solid thriller that relies on character interactions more than it does the grisly details of the murder swanning around the hallways of a hospital. He is quite the opposite of a good nurse, yet despite the unravelling story there comes a great chunk of The Good Nurse that relies on a gentler, darker quality.