Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Good Nurse’ on Netflix, a Heavy True-Story Serial-Killer Drama Held Together by Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne

The Good Nurse (now on Netflix) is a serial-killer thriller without all the usual accouterments one would ascribe to such things. It’s a BOATS (Based On A True Story) movie based on Charles Graeber’s nonfiction book of the same name, about one of the most prolific serial killers ever – but this death-dealer isn’t the slash-and-grin type who leaves behind a token and lets detectives lose weeks of sleep over it. No, this guy is Charlie Cullen, a nurse who got away with surreptitiously murdering patients with medication for many years. He’s played by Eddie Redmayne, who does the creepy nice-guy sociopath thing while Jessica Chastain anchors the movie as the coworker who gets hip to his awful scheme, and instead of heavy showboating (with the exception of one wannabe Oscar Clip scene), they keep the tension purring beneath the humdrum rhythms of real life. Is this a refreshing approach, or will we be wishing for more Buffalo Bill/Casanova/Jack the Ripper nutty flourishes?

THE GOOD NURSE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: ST. ALOYSIUS HOSPITAL, PENNSYLVANIA, 1996: Alarms bleat as a patient flatlines. Doctors and nurses rush into the room to perform CPR and use the defibrillator. A nurse stands a step or two back and watches, and the camera zooms in on his face. Slowly. Agonizingly slowly. Minutes go by. We hear the off-screen bustle as medics desperately try to save this poor soul, counting, administering meds and procedures and eventually calling it, but all we see is Eddie Redmayne in profile, watching with bland concern and maybe just the slightest hint of fascination. Jump to New Jersey, 2003, where nurse Amy Loughren (Chastain) busts her ass on the night shift in the ICU. She kindly lets the husband of an elderly patient stay overnight despite hospital policy, and gets lightly chewed out by her supervisor for it. She shows a similarly familiar sweetheart tone with a coma patient, chatting away as she turns the poor woman in bed to prevent sores, but the exertion is a bit too much for Amy. She starts breathing heavy and gingerly wobbles to a nearby room where she pulls the curtain and plops on the bed and appears to endure some form of cardiac event.

Thank hospital management for ceasing its usual nickel-and-diming of the budget and hiring a new nurse to help out Amy. His name is Charlie, and yes, we recognize him as the Redmayne from the opening sequence. “Tons of experience, great recommendations” is the line on Charlie, and he soon shows impeccable bedside manner and the type of empathetic warmth that results in a fast, easy friendship with Amy. And Amy could use a friend right now. A visit to the doctor is all bad news: Myopathy. She needs a heart transplant. She shouldn’t be working – but she won’t have health insurance until she has a year in at the hospital, and that’s four months away. She’s a single mom with two little girls she sees briefly in the morning before they head to school; the babysitter reminds her that she forgot to pay for last Friday, so Amy counts out the singles in her wallet. The bill for a visit to the cardiologist was nearly a thousand bucks. She lives in a tiny sliver of space between a rock and a hard place.

And in swoops Charlie. He catches her in the middle of another behind-the-curtain cardiac event, helps her calm her breathing. “I’ll just sit with you until you feel better,” he says. She shares her secret with him, and he promises to help her get through these four months. He steps in when the comatose woman needs turning. He stops by and plays with Amy’s girls, who love him. He steals medication for her when she’s experiencing chest pains, and shows her how to manipulate the computer system so nobody will notice. Meanwhile, one of their patients suddenly and inexplicably dies. A pair of detectives (Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich) are called in to investigate, and the hospital director (Kim Dickens) smiles passive-aggressively as she stonewalls them. You putting all this together? Doesn’t matter, because Amy sure is. Amy and her fragile, overtaxed heart.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Good Nurse skews toward the darker end of the spectrum between Nurse Betty and Seven. Chastain acts like crazy in moments of grueling subterfuge that bring to mind Leo sweating his ass off in The Departed. And Netflix will continue to milk the story with Capturing the Killer Nurse, a soon-to-be-released documentary in which we get to meet the real Amy Loughren.

Performance Worth Watching: Redmayne is subtly terrifying when he’s nestled into the dramatic irony here – we know he’s a sociopath, and Amy doesn’t – but he blows it by going berserk in a disappointingly overwrought climactic scene. But Chastain holds the credibility line (as she’s done many times before: Take Shelter, Zero Dark Thirty, The Tree of Life), giving a dramatically resonant performance without ever pushing us out of the moment.

Memorable Dialogue: Charlie: “They didn’t stop me.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: People die in hospitals all the time, but do you know what doesn’t happen very often? Hospitals being held accountable for patient deaths that don’t quite fit the logistical norm. Alongside The Good Nurse’s Amy-Charlie character-based tension is a harsh indictment of the U.S. for-profit medical system, which, in this plot and in real life, let Charlie Cullen be fired and hired over and over again so he could keep killing people, as hospitals looked the other way and therefore avoided any legal or financial liability. That’s a new one – so let’s just add it to the ever-growing Everest of stories in which people forego life-saving treatment because it’s unaffordable and/or are bankrupted by insurance companies, although this movie has that too (although screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns fictionalizes Amy’s insurance woes, if any gross capitalist exploitative corrupt hypocritical behemoth deserves to be mercilessly piled on, it’s the U.S. medical system).

That’s one seething cauldron of rage this film explores. But another boils alongside it, of a more emotional nature: how Amy leans on Charlie for some much-needed support. Her struggle is real, and he’s so kind, so gentle, so caring, and Redmayne is so convincing. It’s precisely what she needs, but when the rug gets pulled right out from under her at the worst possible moment, she has no choice but to dig in and do what needs to be done – be a good and decent person in the same room with a man capable of inexplicable evil. There are scenes in which she knows but we’re not sure if he knows that she knows, and the tension is agonizing. You could bottle the pregnant pauses between Redmayne and Chastain and heat the house for a year.

Director Tobias Lindholm maintains a steady pace and a dry, sober tone which support and encourage the two leads’ resolute performances. It borders on dreary colorlessness, but rarely feels unrealistic. Lindholm wisely chooses to underdirect and let Chastain and Redmayne’s performances guide the film, and the result is a frequently engrossing no-frills Drama for Adults that stirs up feelings of both an existential and pragmatic nature. Turns out there’s great horror in a story of singular evil propagated by amoral corporate bureaucracy.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Good Nurse is a rock-solid down-down-downer that gives us strong performances and no easy answers. Make sure you’re prepared to bear two hours’ worth of weighty drama, though.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.