Movie Review: 'The Good Nurse' is a Top Notch True Crime Story

The Good Nurse (2022)

Directed by Tobias Lindstrom

Written by Krysty Wilson Cairns

Starring Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne

Release Date October 19th, 2022

Published October 16th, 2022

The Good Nurse is a brilliantly moody and thoughtful dramatic mystery. With Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne at the height of their acting powers, and director Tobias Lindstrom smartly giving them space to find and inhabit these characters, The Good Nurse engulfs you in its story. Why is it so rare for a modern mystery to let their characters be smart? The Good Nurse does a wonderful job of letting these characters be properly intuitive and not duped simply because the plot requires them to be.

The Good Nurse tells the story of a nurse who was followed by death wherever he went. Charlie (Eddie Redmayne) has worked for 9 different hospitals in his relatively short career. Why? He claims it has to do with an ex-wife who moves a lot and his effort to stay near his children. He's not a charmer per se, but a seemingly kind and simple man, helpful and thoughtful. That's certainly the experience of him that Amy Loughran (Jessica Chainstain) has had as his co-worker.

Amy is a struggling single mother suffering from a heart condition. She needs to remain employed at this hospital for a year before she can get health insurance which will allow here to get the kind of care she needs. Until then, she's risking her life just to work. When she's given Charlie as her new co-worker on the late shift, he's a godsend. He helps cover up her physical problems and having a lesser burden at work makes Amy's life at home a little easier.

Charlie and Amy aren't romantic, they have a platonic relationship even as Charlie becomes enmeshed with her family, hanging out with her and her two young daughters. It appears that Amy will be able to get by the final months until her health insurance benefits kick in and Charlie appears to be a wonderful influence on her daughters. She has no reason to believe anything is wrong with Charlie but there are things happening at the hospital that are unusual.

Since Charlie started, there has been an uptick in unexpected deaths, even among patients who should have been able to recover. One such death requires the Police to be called. Detectives Baldwin (Namdi Asomugha) and Braun (Noah Emmerich), are smart and observant detectives. When they find the hospital stonewalling them, having only contacted the detectives as a matter of protocol, the red flags become clear and they use good old fashion instinct and determination to uncover why this case is so very strange.

While Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne are doing incredible work as the two leads, I want to shout out former NFL star Namdi Asomugha and veteran character actor Noah Emmerich. The two have terrific chemistry as detective partners and the smart script by Krysty Wilson Cairns, never betrays the detectives for the sake of creating forced tension or mystery. So many similar movies have characters like these be ignorant in order to force the attention on the main character. Here, the detectives are given believable roadblocks and have to work around them with their wits and intelligence. This is communicated in smartly constructed scenes.

Asomugha and Emmerich are never treated as mere pawns or just supporting characters. These characters are allowed to move the plot forward even while we are focused on Amy and Charlie's friendly but slowly unraveling friendship. This sets up for a powerhouse ending where all of the characters are allowed to shine with smart dialogue and believable twists and turns in the character dynamics. It's genuinely exciting just watching these smart characters interact without the need for a score to push us toward tension and suspense and without the need for any histrionics or unnecessary action.

The final act is three of the main four actors, as if on stage and not on a set, shifting the scene via dialogue and complicated emotional dynamics. Some might find the overall ending unsatisfying but it is true to the stories that inspired it and that was more than enough for me. I loved watching these actors go around with each other and the atmosphere that director Tobias Lindstrom creates with smart camera choices and sparse but effective set design. It's all so rich and realistic. Just great actors and a skillfully simple bit of direction and The Good Nurse becomes more effective and exciting than most other modern thrillers.

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