While Netflix offered its Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a ten-part mini-series on, perhaps, America’s most notorious serial killer, the same company also brought to its streaming service, as well as to the big screen, a feature-lengthed film on lesser known, albeit more another prolific serial killer in Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse. This review will undoubtedly contain spoilers. If you have yet to see The Good Nurse, I recommend a viewing, though I’ll caution that it operates slower than what you both wish and expect. I am uncertain if I would have given as invested in The Good Nurse had I watched it at home rather than at the theater. This is all to say that it deserves the attention the director, the writers, and the actors put into it.’

Lindholm (most noted for writing the screenplays for Mads Mikkelsen movies The Hunt and Another Round) steps behind the camera for the first time since 2015 and delivers an understated but hauntingly profound true story of Charlie Cullen, a nurse in the New Jersey area, who, over a decade and a half in the 1990s and early 2000s, confessed to purposely killing 29 patients (though that number may be as much as 400) by injecting deadly amounts of deadly drugs (such as insulin or digoxin) into saline bags, causing the death of innocent patients.

At Lindholm’s disposal were two of Hollywood’s heavyweights in Cullen (Eddie Redmayne –The Theory of Everything, The Danish Girl) and Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Zero Dark Thirty), his co-worker nurse at Somerset Medical Center who, while working as a confidential informant, helped detectives secure enough evidence to bring him down. Lindholm, who co-wrote the screenplay with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Last Night in Soho, 1917) from the adaptation of Charles Graeber’s 2013 book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder, constructed a movie that could have felt like a made for television movie had he not had the two Oscar winners matching each other toe for toe, scene for scene and the disturbing story that was so unimaginable that it would have received ridicule for being reckless had it not been 100% true.

Redmayne (in a role that could earn him his third Oscar nomination) is chilling as Charlie, a nurse who has, alarmingly, worked at his tenth hospital in 15 years when he and Amy meet for the first time. Charlie is a kind-hearted, caring, easygoing nurse who seems to be the perfect fit at Amy’s Somerset Medical Center. At this underfunded and understaffed facility, Amy works the night shift. Unequivocally a good nurse, Amy bonds with her patients while providing authentic comfort to the loved ones of those suffering. A life-threatening heart condition magnifies Amy’s responsibilities as a single mother of two elementary school-aged girls, one brought on by stress. Her job as a hospital nurse, while not low on pressure, is one that she cannot leave. She has been there for eight months and needs to reach one year before she can qualify for health insurance, which would allow her to get on a health transplant list that she desperately needs. In no uncertain terms, her doctor tells her that she’s on borrowed time until she can get a new heart, going as far as instructing her to teach her young daughters how to identify symptoms of a stroke and what to do.

Charlie becomes the perfect friend for Amy. When he witnessed her symptoms firsthand, he not only promised not to tell anyone (knowing that her condition would get her fired from the hospital), but he assisted her in securing some unauthorized medication that would help her by understanding a quirk in the computer system that cancels a medication request at the last minute but still releasing the medication, without the system having a record of a drug (i.e., a pill) dispensation. The illegal, unethical practice is only slightly questioned by Amy, who knows that she needs this medication that she cannot afford by being uninsured. As stated earlier, this story would have been almost laughable had it not been 100% true. Charlie befriends Amy outside of work by driving her to appointments, cooking for her, and even watching her kids. She suspects nothing but good from Charlie (outside of his computer system manipulation), nor do we. He’s a likable nurse and a good friend. His smooth, confident, engaging personality makes him nearly impossible not to like. Redmayne expertly lets us into the madness buried deep within him.

When two of her patients unexpectedly die via cardiac arrest, the hospital, led by a rather unfriendly corporate risk manager (Kim Dickens – Land, Gone Girl), directs an internal investigation, one eerily similar to those conducted at the previous hospitals where Charlie was employed. The hospital is in a “how quickly can we diffuse this situation” mentality, as it does not want lawsuits for these mysterious patient deaths.

Detectives Baldwin (Nnamdi Asomugha – Hello, My Name Is Doris) and Braun (Miracle, F/X’s The Americans) are assigned to investigate a case that seems to get more bizarre as they dig into it. There is a repeated pattern of Charlie leaving hospital positions under less-than-normal circumstances, such as these. However, he always seems to land on his feet in a new city, working a similar job. Baldwin and Braun refuse to let this case simmer and catch a break when an interview with Amy leads to a critical breakthrough that may result in enough evidence to have a case against Charlie.

Chastain has been one of my favorite actors for the last 15 years. I love how she refuses to take easy roles, tackling complex characters and unique scripts. While there are some lulls through the film’s slow pacing, you will find the movie worth your watch if you allow yourself to become absorbed in her character. Likewise, if you want to see an actor at the top of the game, Redmayne is as good as he’s ever been. He continues to carefully pick and choose his roles, leaving memorable performances in everything he touches. Oddly, its tension never boils over for a movie identified as a thriller, but it does feel extremely uncomfortable as the story nears its conclusion.

Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 7/10
Character Chemistry 9/10
Acting 9.5/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing  8/10
Cinematography 8/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 8/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
85%

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