True crime has historically lent a veneer of respectability to some fairly sleazy movie and TV. The logic appears to be that if one thing actually occurred, filmmakers can’t be blamed for desirous to dramatise it. In fact, how filmmakers go about presenting a story can fluctuate wildly, which means in apply that the true crime style is residence to every part from essentially the most exploitative of horny homicide sagas to essentially the most righteous and respectable of dramatisations. The Good Nurse falls into the second class.
Primarily based on the infamous case of Charlie Cullen, an American nurse convicted of murdering 29 folks and who could have been answerable for as much as 400 deaths, Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ script is a minimum of as within the failures of the a number of hospitals that uncared for to report their suspicions about Cullen as it’s in Cullen himself.
A finely calibrated portrait of tragic occasions which reserves the lion’s share of its anger for systemic failures.
Eddie Redmayne does wonderful work as Cullen, however Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren is the actual lead. It’s an uncommon position — in most movies, the unwitting feminine pal of a serial killer is a minor character, a stooge who stands a very good likelihood of assembly a sticky finish herself — however right here Chastain takes centre stage, mixing vulnerability and guts to painting a lady who’s neither whole dupe nor omnipotent superhero.
Director Tobias Lindholm is probably higher often known as a author (he wrote The Hunt and One other Spherical for Thomas Vinterberg) however all that work scripting movies preoccupied with culpability pays off handsomely right here and sees him ship a finely calibrated portrait of tragic occasions which reserves the lion’s share of its anger for systemic failures. It is a story that reminds us that disturbed people will at all times exist, however asks whether or not the actual disgrace belongs to (or ought to a minimum of be shared by) the societies and programs that allow them.
