morbid and monotonous except for Jessica Chastain

Tright here’s a tragic timeliness to The Good Nurse popping out now – simply because the trial of British nurse Lucy Letby reminds us how historical past generally appears to repeat itself. Inspired by the true story of Charles Cullen, convicted of killing 29 of his personal sufferers over greater than a decade, The Good Nurse is a chilling portrait of amorality, in addition to a fairly damning exposé of America’s damaged well being system.

Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) turns up right here in 2003, assembly nurse Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain) on the night time shift of a New Jersey hospital. Amy is a single mum at breaking level – privately coping with her personal sickness whereas she overworks herself serving to different folks in a job that’s barely making a dent in her crippling medical payments. When Cullen arrives on the identical ICU ward, he looks as if a godsend. Helping to ease Amy’s workload, in addition to exhibiting her the way to skim a number of meds on the aspect, he turns into a fantastic pal – even when he’s a wee bit creepy.

But when Cullen’s sufferers mysteriously begin dying, Amy is fast to ask questions. And so do the police (Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich). As the case deepens, the hospital administration closes ranks – with layers of purple tape used to cowl up a personal well being system that appears to be doing much more harm than Cullen.

Director Tobias Lindholm (greatest know for writing The Hunt and Another Round) arms the script off to Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Last Night In Soho) and does no matter he can to broaden the scope of a narrative that’s too typically wrongly been centered on only one particular person. Redmayne performs Cullen as subdued as potential – burying no matter motive he might need below a layer of quiet blankness that nearly makes him appear likeable – leaving the hospital itself to return throughout as the largest monster.

The actual focus, although, is Amy – with Chastain gifting the position an extremely robust efficiency as a lady caught in the midst of a dozen terrible currents without delay. Amy actually doesn’t have the time, cash or power to be the hero of the story, however she additionally is aware of that she will’t stand by and do nothing. Whatever steadiness and weight the script carries, Chastain finds a technique to elevate it even additional – turning The Good Nurse right into a much better movie than it possibly deserves to be.

Tripping over a few of its personal dialogue and settling a bit too comfortably into cliché, the movie sometimes appears like a Netflix true crime story with a few good actors as a substitute of speaking heads. The detective path runs a bit too chilly (particularly since everybody is aware of what occurred anyway) and among the movie’s clunkier procedural particulars boring the factors it’s making an attempt to make – nevertheless it by no means actually issues every time Chastain is on display.

Turning an terrible true story a few serial killer into an terrible true story concerning the system that permit it occur, The Good Nurse is a vital lesson for anybody who tries to package deal Cullen’s crimes too neatly. Better nonetheless although, it offers us considered one of Chastain’s greatest performances; one of many 12 months’s most plausible superheroes.