Rating: R | Runtime: 121 minutes
Release Date: October 26th, 2022 (USA)
Studio: Netflix
Director(s): Tobias Lindholm
Writer(s): Krysty Wilson-Cairns / Charles Graeber (book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder)

They didn’t stop me.

Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse is a pretty solid true life drama that I believe works as well as it does because he and screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns didn’t try and turn Charles Graeber’s non-fiction novel into a thriller. We know Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) is killing these people. That’s not up for debate. And humanizing him through his genuine friendship with Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain) doesn’t negate that fact.

I’d argue he becomes scarier as a result because it proves he is good at his job. He has the capacity to save lives. You could almost read his story in a way that makes him a warped activist trying to expose the hospital system’s penchant for caring more about their financial liability than human lives. Maybe that’s why he’s never admitted “why.”

That aspect is admittedly the most interesting. All the stuff between Charlie and Amy is familiar territory as far as “he was such a nice guy” hindsight is concerned. Where the filmmakers really hit their stride is the investigation headed by Noah Emmerich and Nnamdi Asomugha’s detectives and how their every move is obstructed by the hospital’s risk manager played by Kim Dickens. She’s impeding their progress because she needs time to get Charlie off her payroll before they can charge him with a crime. Talk about evil. And you can’t even put all the blame squarely upon her shoulders since she represents the ninth hospital to do so.

Redmayne is great in the role (the only reason I watched was because he keeps being mentioned as a potential Oscar nominee). Until a few instances later on when things begin to finally unravel for him, he’s a walking exemplar of empathy—so much so that we never fear for Amy or her daughters’ well-being, even when Lindholm tries to pretend we should.

As such, I’d argue that it’s Chastain who leaves an even bigger mark. Between her heart disease, the pressures of being a single mother, her job responsibilities, and navigating the realization that her best friend is a murderer, her character is put through the ringer and more. She’s the “good nurse,” after all. The only one who finally did something.

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THE GOOD NURSE (2022). L to R: Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren and Eddie Redmayne as Charlie Cullen. Cr. JoJo Whilden / Netflix.