Good nurse Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain) has a warm bedside manner and a razor-sharp grasp of her profession. She’s the supervising nurse of Parkfield Hospital’s intensive care unit in New Jersey.
Like the sword of Damocles, a heart ailment hangs over her. She’s at risk of a stroke; she’s mentally and physically exhausted from juggling long hours on her feet and from being a single mom with two young daughters. She’s unable to rest or take the time off for a heart transplant because she needs the money for health insurance, which means that she has to continue working in the ICU like a ticking time bomb, with the additional stress of working the night shift.
Bad Nurse
Things start looking up for Amy when new nurse Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) joins her care crew. He’s good and very experienced, with previous nursing jobs in nine hospitals. He’s observant and quickly notices her episodes of short-windedness and extreme exhaustion.Being a caretaker by profession and personality—that is, personable, helpful, supportive, quiet, and gentle—he’s also capable of assuming such huge responsibilities that Amy quickly begins trusting him with extra jobs, including babysitting her own children. Charlie’s a godsend, getting her through the harrowing times prior to her getting an operation. Amy’s gratitude is palpable.
As their friendship builds (there’s Charlie coaching Amy’s eldest and running lines with her for her school play), Amy finally feels hope for the future. However, there’s something seriously rotten in the state of Denmark.
Charlie soon becomes the main suspect in the hospital’s investigation of a spate of patients suddenly coding and dying. The local detectives find themselves stonewalled by the hospital’s bureaucracy. The hospital keeps conveniently cremating bodies.
The police eventually recruit Amy, against her will, to spy on Charlie and, wearing a wire, hopefully to ensnare him in a confession. Charlie’s very sweet on the outside, but he’s also a deadly serial killer, and so Amy risks her life and career, not to mention being inwardly conflicted because she and Charlie have become fast friends.
Hospital Indictment
Since “The Good Nurse” is based on a true story, it’s not a spoiler to relate that warm, smiling, taking-care-of-your-children, trusted-colleague Charlie Cullen turns out to be the Angel of Death. Real-life Cullen eventually pleaded guilty in 2003 to committing 40 murders (29 of which were confirmed) during a 16-year nursing career, spanning 10 hospitals and nursing homes in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas. The real number of his murder spree is thought to be closer to 400.Performances
“The Good Nurse” is Danish director Tobias Lindholm’s first American feature film, and he brings a strongly Scandinavian-European sensibility. “The Good Nurse” has as much of the feel of a European art house as it does an American medical thriller.
Jessica Chastain plays Amy with such subtle naturalism that you’ll swear you’re in the company of an actual overworked, underpaid nurse, and stressed-to-the-max mom.
British actor Eddie Redmayne transitions chillingly, via a series of escalating and slowly revelatory tics, from sweetness and anxiety to a crux scene of massive madness. It’s sort of Norman Bates meets Hannibal Lecter.
Cullen is now serving 11 consecutive life sentences. No hospital where he worked has ever been sued. Why’d he do it? In his own words— “because no one ever stopped him.” “The Good Nurse” will have you biting your nails and make you think twice the next time you see a nurse wheeling an IV bag stand in your general direction.
