The Good Nurse review: Employee of the month

Netflix has received a fair amount of criticism for their portrayal of serial killers. Most recently, there was uproar over series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which critics say fetishized the titular murderer at the expense of the story that creator Ryan Murphy claimed would be told: that of the victims.

So, when Netflix released true crime movie The Good Nurse, it was not without trepidation that we sat down to watch another dramatisation of another mass murderer – in this case Charles Cullen. Based on the book of the same name by Charles Graeber, The Good Nurse follows two Intensive Care nightshift nurses, one of whom suspects the other of being responsible for a series of mysterious patient deaths.

The former, single mother Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain) is suffering from cardiomyopathy, but must hide her condition from her employees out of fear that she’ll lose her job. As is typical for American healthcare, Amy is slowly being bankrupted by the cost of her treatments. She shouldn’t even be working but must wait four more months for her employee healthcare plan to kick in. Hired as extra help for the hospital’s nightshift is Charles Cullen (Eddie Redmayne), meanwhile, an experienced nurse who has done a lot of job hopping. The two colleagues quickly become friends and, after Cullen learns of Amy’s condition, he becomes a co-conspirator, helping Amy to keep on her feet and stop the hospital from finding out about her condition.

As with the Dahmer series, a quick Google search or Wikipedia scan will tell you how the story ends. Hell, even the film’s trailer outlines events from start to finish. That’s not really what we’re here for, though. We’re watching for the build-up, the drama, the how and, more importantly, the why. It’s at this point that The Good Nurse’s different approach to depicting a serial killer becomes most tangible.

What writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns and director Tobias Lindholm have crafted is a tale of evil, yes, but without a perverse and unbalanced fixation on perpetrator. Cullen is a frightening figure, but the film’s true villain is the dystopian nightmare that is the profit-driven American healthcare system. Refreshingly, there is no sensationalising of Cullen; no over-dramatizing of his methods. He’s not even the main character in the movie about his deeds. He’s merely a side effect of a callous industry that puts itself above patients.

In The Good Nurse, it doesn’t matter why Cullen killed. What matters is how he kept getting away with it because hospital administrators, fully aware of what was happening, kept passing the buck instead of taking action that would hold them accountable.

There are moments where you think The Good Nurse will “Hollywood”-ise real-life events. It would be easy to have Cullen threaten Amy’s family, or Amy could be found out by her bosses. Our heroine could even have her strained heart pushed too far by a big confrontation. The Good Nurse sets up every one of these scenarios, but the anticipation and anxiety is ultimately all in the viewer’s head. Refreshingly, Lindholm doesn’t go there, or anywhere near there in fact. Barring an odd lack of doctors in its world, The Good Nurse keep events grounded and believable – and is all the more chilling for it.

Helping in this realistic endeavour are the two Oscar-winning leads. Both Chastain and Redmayne get to act against type here. Chastain, who often plays strong-willed and fiery characters is more of a relatable everywoman in The Good Nurse. Amy is certainly principled, and very much a good nurse, but she’s also at the mercy of her bosses and her weakening body. Every action she takes is a risk to herself, and the future of her loved ones. Meanwhile, the likeable Redmayne strikes a skilful balance with Cullen, portraying him as someone both mild-mannered and scarily dangerous. As in real life, Cullen stays an enigma in terms of his motivations, but it’s possible for the viewer to understand how he would see himself as a victim of an unjust system.

All this said, there is never any doubt who the real villains of The Good Nurse are. And they’re all sporting suits and strained smiles as they hide behind their lawyers, legal technicalities and threats of instant dismissal to stop the truth getting out. That’s as skin-crawling as any graphic deep dive into the actions of an individual serial killer.   

The Good Nurse is streaming on Netflix as of 26 October.