The Good Nurse (2022)

 

Genre: Crime/ Thriller

Time: 2 hours

Director: Tobias Lindholm

Quick Summary: An infamous caregiver is implicated in the deaths of hundreds of hospital patients.

Obvious plotline, but I was eating it right up/

This works on so many levels, while I knew what would happen from the very get-go, I was hooked the entire way through. For a film based on real-life events, I actually felt like the script reflected how normal conversations would go. It didn't feel dramatised. It keeps going at this really consistent slow pace which keeps hold of you by slowly giving you the information. Of course, none of it is a shock as it paints the picture very clearly in the opening scene, so it's more like slowly confirming the suspicion which is equally as gratifying. 

The acting is excellent, with Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain absolutely killing their respective roles. However, you can never go wrong with either of them. But I will say Eddie came across as very unsettling in the first place and admittedly I wouldn't find his character comforting at all. I'm not sure if it's because the guy in real life was actually like this or Eddie was laying it on too thick that he had secrets to hide. There is this one scene where he has an absolute full-blown tantrum that really caught my attention.

The camera work is creative and engaging, choosing to hold shots for long periods, especially during the death scenes some of which really got me. Though they really could have done with some budget on the lighting. I know it's a dark film but I didn't think they meant literally as pretty much all the scenes in the hospital are dingy and dull. 

I mainly have issues with this film because I feel like it didn't give enough attention or information about what was happening. The background stuff has to do with the hospitals on why they kept hiring him or why they were trying to cover up the deaths so much. Or even more to do with Jessica's character, like how she got into her situation of a single mother barely scraping by with a life-threatening heart condition. 

Aside from that I actually really enjoyed this. Maybe it was the pure horror of realising what this guy did and the staggering amount he did. Watching him slowly become someone who comes across as nice and comforting slowly turns creepy was also something that hooked me. Don't expect anything that has twists and turns though as this is more styled as a brief telling of the capture. 

7/10

"Charlie Cullen: I think the universe hates me, Amy."