Pairing up Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne for a true-crime thriller sounds like it would make for a compelling watch, especially since The Good Nurse is based on a true story. Directed by Tobias Lindholm from a screenplay by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, The Good Nurse, adapted from the 2013 book by Charles Graeber, while deeply intriguing and occasionally haunting, lacks personality, intensity, and depth. It's a run-of-the-mill crime drama that doesn't stand out.
Amy Loughren (Chastain) is a nurse and mother who is trying to balance her work and personal life while also suffering from a medical issue that threatens to be fatal if she doesn’t rest. Enter Charles Cullen (Redmayne), a fellow nurse who is new at Amy’s hospital. The two quickly become friends, with Amy confiding in him about her medical condition and bringing him into her home to meet her two daughters (Devyn McDowell and Alix West Lefler). After a patient dies under suspicious circumstances, two detectives (Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich) are tasked with investigating what happened. As the clues start to point towards Charles, Amy finds herself caught between a friend and doing what’s right.
There’s a fine line to walk when adapting a true story to the screen. While there are sure to be dramatizations and creative liberties taken to build tension or enhance certain aspects of the story, The Good Nurse is a true-crime thriller that feels stagnant in its approach. Chastain’s Amy Loughren, who is the real-life good nurse in the title, isn’t as developed as she could be. The film showcases Amy’s heart issues, but it’s more of a plot device to instigate Charles helping her than a full-fledged storyline that exists on its own. The tension between Amy and her eldest daughter is palpable, but The Good Nurse doesn’t seem interested in further exploring Amy’s life, how she manages work and parenting without much help, or how that affects her relationship with her daughters. Her friendship with Charles gets some attention, but it’s surface-level at best.
The film is good at revealing the insidious actions of not only Charlie, but the hospital systems in place that would keep him employed despite the fact that he murdered patients. The greed, corruption, and unethical actions of the healthcare industry — also highlighted by Amy’s lack of health insurance, which was promised to her only after she worked at the hospital for a year — is on full display. The Good Nurse doesn’t try to paint the healthcare world as anything but terrible, with nurses like Amy being the exception, a cog in a machine that works well in a money-hungry world. Amy puts her life on the line to do something good, to stop Charlie from killing any more people. Had the film explored more of their friendship, the nuance of having to turn on someone believed to be a friend would have been more powerful.
Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne are, of course, reliably good in a film that tries to be the same. Their performances elevate a thin script. What’s nice about Redmayne’s portrayal of Charlie is that he isn’t immediately sinister. His character might have killed multiple people in reality, but Redmayne’s performance is at times gentle, yet infused with a good amount of confusion. Even in moments when the audience might expect Charlie to attack — and there’s an especially tense scene between him and Amy that could have played out that way — Redmayne remains restrained and unassuming to the point that one might begin to question Charlie’s hand in the murders at all. Chastain conveys Amy’s tenderness, her need to believe people are good, as well as her heartbreak after learning of Charlie’s actions incredibly well. There is a lot going on in the film that wildly affects Amy emotionally and mentally from one scene to the next, and Chastain’s performance keeps her grounded.
The Good Nurse manages to avoid certain tropes of the true-crime genre, side-stepping all the grim intensity and brutal violence, the obvious “I’m a serial killer” looks, and any monologue or moments that would give Charlie too much sympathy. However, the film ultimately lacks the stamina and personality to keep audiences invested in what’s going on. The pacing is slow, the cinematography sterile, and the story lacking proper dimension to make any kind of impact.
The Good Nurse had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11. The film releases in limited theaters October 19 before streaming on Netflix October 26. It is 121 minutes long and is rated R for language.