When nurse Charles Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) begins working alongside single mother Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain) on night shifts at Parkfield Memorial Hospital, patients begin to die under mysterious circumstances.

This film follows the true story of Loughren, also known as “The Good Nurse” as she goes to the extreme in order to help the detectives solve the case involving the deaths of ICU patients. Left in the dark along with the other hospital employees, she has no clue her kind colleague, Cullen, is behind the deaths.

The movie is slow to begin. Other than one memorable scene with slight suspense, it feels like just a regular medical drama. As someone who doesn’t watch thriller movies often, I was underwhelmed. Considering the plot of other films where it incorporates the thriller and suspense aspects throughout the movie, “The Good Nurse” is much milder and lacked what I had been looking forward to the most, the suspense.

In terms of the acting, Eddie Redmayme gives a bone-chilling performance as Charles Cullen. Redmayne portrays his character perfectly with shifty eyes and a blank gaze which gives him an eerie vibe that adds on to the nervous feeling I felt when he showed up on screen. Each time he appeared I was unsure of what his next action was going to be, making me feel nervous for what would pop up next. This type of character is shown in most crime films, but Redmayne’s acting adds a different feeling which helps to increase the suspense. 

Similarly, Chastain portrays Loughren as nervous and anxious. Whenever Cullen was in the same scene as her, Loughren’s actions became more hesitant, showing how she felt about her colleague. During parts where she was visibly nervous, the background noise in the film was drowned out by the sound of a beating heart, giving the viewers an insight into how she was feeling. With the use of that specific audio, I was able to put myself in the shoes of Loughren and imagine how she was feeling during that situation.

This true story brings to light the issues that could happen in our society. This story is inspiring, yet terrifying to know that someone had to go through this experience in order for it to be a movie. I’d recommend this to others who want to get into watching a true story, crime film, but without the heavily implied thriller and suspense.