Writer: Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Director: Tobias Lindholm
The hospital drama is primarily a television genre but every now and then one makes it to the big screen. Tucked away in the Thrill section of the BFI London Film Festival 2022, Krysty Wilson-Cairns The Good Nurse is an adaptation of the Charles Cullen scandal in 1990s and early 2000s American which makes gripping screen drama about personal friendships and the US medical care system that across nine different hospitals failed to stop him.
Nurse Amy suffers from cardiomyopathy but needs to work four more months before qualifying for insurance cover with her hospital. Under pressure, new nurse Charles joins the nightshift and Amy is soon impressed with his kindness and soothing bedside manner, welcoming him into her home and family. But an unexplained death raises questions about hospital practice and when the police become involved, an investigation begins.
For those unfamiliar with the case Director Thomas Lindholm’s film does little to hide who the perpetrator must be, and while there is a passing thought that the writer Wilson-Cairns and the Director may be trying to misdirect the audience as is the way with thrillers, most of the attention is focused on the hospital politics and how Charles and Amy’s friendship changes as the suspicions start to infect the story. The Good Nurse is none the less thrilling with its howdunnit rather than whodunnit approach which rarely relents.
Much of this is down to the way that Wilson-Cairns and Lindholm establish the scenario and characters, creating investment in their perspectives and holding back from melodrama in the presentation of the crimes, in fact they are carefully unsensationalist with little focus even on the acts themselves and no shots of them being committed. Instead, this is a personality study of the two central characters, hardworking Amy trying to make ends meet and do a good job, and Charles whose incredible niceness comes with just a tinge of something far more malevolent, asking what does a good person look like?
Two hours absolutely flies by and as Amy slowly comes to realise the truth, a new kind of intensity develops in the film in which she risks her job and her safety to help the police. The dialogue is taut and engaging, slowly uncovering the truth but without taking away from the process and dedication of those involved, all the while noting the failure of hospital administration and the insurance-based system that encourages them to cover-up mistakes rather than face the consequences.
Since winning his Oscar, Eddie Redmayne has become an even more fascinating performer, exchanging typecast sensitive nice boys for some really complex characterisation on stage and screen. His Charles is a triumph, nice and charming with just a hint of too good to be true which is low level enough not to raise suspicions. Redmayne is outstanding in the final set of duologues and it wouldn’t be a surprise if another nomination followed early next year,
Jessica Chastain is the film’s anchor as Amy, a character that we care for as she battles low wages and the resentment of her daughters who feel her absence. That mixture of female guilt and the bewilderment of being caught up in something unexpected is well established, and Chastain’s presentation of Amy’s physical limitation is sympathetic.
Following the 2021 Festival preview of Dopesick, the failures of the US medical system are writ large in The Good Nurse, a story that makes an arresting transfer to the screen.
The Good Nurse is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2022.
