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.
