There's little scarier than a serial killer movie that's based on a true story. Just the notion that one person is capable of not only committing multiple murders, but also continuing with a seemingly ordinary life, is enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. And yet, from a cinematic perspective, serial killer movies, whether true-crime documentaries or dramatizations of real-life events, remain a staple subgenre. From The Silence of the Lambs to Zodiac, some of the most critically and commercially acclaimed films have explored the lives of serial killers. Joining the pantheon of great serial killer movies, and effectively making its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival 2022, is Tobias Lindholm's The Good Nurse.
Based on a chilling true story, The Good Nurse stars Jessica Chastain as nurse Amy Loughren, who is struggling to balance work, single-parenthood, and her worsening cardiomyopathy. In order to obtain health insurance from work — and, by extension, take medical leave — she needs to have completed a full year of employment (which she's only a few months away from doing so). Overworked and trying to keep her medical condition a secret from the hospital, she finds profound kindness and support from a new nurse in her ward, Charles "Charlie" Cullen (played by Eddie Redmayne). Soon, some of Amy's patients begin dying under mysterious circumstances, and eventually, she starts to suspect Charlie is involved.
It's well-known that true-crime stories have seen an exponential surge in popularity, with Netflix at the fore providing a multitude of documentaries, series, and movies to binge. In fact, per Deadline, the streaming platform scored the distribution rights to The Good Nurse, and will release the film later this year. Of course, what immediately sets Lindholm's film apart from the vast catalog of serial killer movies, however, is its refusal to be another salacious or violent retelling of a person's killing spree. The Good Nurse is a more complex story, focusing instead on Amy's relationship with Charlie, how deeply he became part of her life, and the structures that exist that allowed him to commit serial murder. We, in fact, don't actually see him commit murder. The result is a chilling character study of a killer that's just as disturbing, if not more so, as ever.
Phenomenal Performances from Both Chastain and Redmayne
With Jody Lee Lipes' striking cinematography and Biosphere's ghostly score, The Good Nurse's success largely hinges on Chastain and Redmayne, both of whom turn in phenomenal and restrained performances. As Amy, Chastain is sublime in her character's emotional journey, from forming a special connection to Charlie and realizing what he's done to putting herself in danger in order to assist the local detectives (played by Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich) in capturing him. And as Charlie, Redmayne is scarier than ever without being overtly showy or sinister, giving us the perfect undercover killer: a nurse who exhibits compassion and care for his patients with the faintest whisper of him being slightly off and, in his darker moments, completely detached.
Subtlety, in fact, is the key to Lindholm's film. The Good Nurse isn't about one man's serial murder, per se, or one woman's heroism in the face of it. Indeed, the film offers a larger look at the established systems that allowed for Charlie to commit these murders in the first place (which are believed to reach as high as 400 victims). This is where Asomugha and Emmerich's detectives come in: the two are consistently stonewalled by the various hospitals Charlie has worked at, unable to get a full scope of his crimes because the institutions fear what that would mean for their reputation and, frankly, profit. The same lens with which Lindholm has astutely examined the world we live in — and given us films like Another Round (which earned him a Best Director Oscar nom in 2021) — is applied here. The spotlight is on Amy, Charlie, and, thus, who we are as a people.
If The Good Nurse feels like it crawls, it's ultimately in service of its final act, especially as Charlie reveals why he killed all those people. Amy, of course, is a key player in this moment, and it's a triumphant scene for all involved. Here, Charlie is cold, perhaps even wants to laugh at the circumstances, while Amy is left with newfound knowledge that will make you absolutely sick. When it comes to a typical serial killer movie, it's likely an ending that most wouldn't expect, but that's the point — and it's a haunting one, too: The Good Nurse's story asserts that is a symptom of a more complex diagnosis, one for which we have the cure, but simply refuse to administer it.