The Good Nurse (2022)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  9 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: On the one hand, Tobias Lindholm and Krysty Wilson-Cairns' 'The Good Nurse,' is a haunting true suspense story about nurse Charles Cullen who kills his patients (Eddie Redmayne) and his colleague Amy discovering what he's doing (Jessica Chastain). The premise means you know from the off what he's doing, but you long throughout to understand why, especially as you see him being kind to Amy and her children. You also long for her and the cops to realise, and that, along with the obvious horror of seeing people die, results in a pretty edge-of-your seat experience, and that's helped by the slow, close-up editing and the brilliant central performances.
  
  But the film packs even more of a punch because as you long to find out how he's getting away with it, you also see the hospital chiefs doing their best to cover it up at every step of the way by withholding evidence and brushing any suspicious deaths under the carpet. That, especially when coupled with Amy's personal struggles with private healthcare, makes a horrific point about how private industry owns our bodies and our lives, and how it can literally kill us if allowed to carry on unchecked. The final message that flashes up "there have never been criminal proceedings against any of [his] hospitals," is about as sickening an ending imaginable, and the fact it's a true story makes for a real punch to the gut.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: The film could have transcended more if not for the oddly sanitised, empty production design and colour palette.
  
  VERDICT: 'The Good Nurse,' uses a suspenseful true crime story to make an equally horrifying political point, and the result is a pretty powerful watch.

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