TIFF 2022: The Good Nurse Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

The latest example of actors saving a film is The Good Nurse, a thriller based on a true story. This time, it’s Oscar winners Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne. While it’s not a prestige piece by any means, they at least keep it interesting even though it could have been so much more. In terms of the genre, it doesn’t bring anything new to the table whatsoever for better or worse. While being based on a true story gives it a predictability factor for anyone familiar with the story, other audiences are sure to also find it predictable. Delivering a decent watch for the most part, where the film falters is the execution of its script. A series of predictable derivative story beats, tropes, and cliches tied together by lazy character development, Chastain and Redmayne make it work but arguably the former more so than the latter. It’s just a shame that the film couldn’t trust them more than they did here.

The Good Nurse, based on The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder by Charles Graeber, the film follows a nurse and ailing single mother named Amy Loughren (Chastain). Working night shifts at an understaffed hospital, her department brings in another nurse named Charlie Cullen (Redmayne). Coming off as incredibly charming, there is also an air of mystery surrounding him as the story hints at a troubled past but as far as Loughren knew, he was charming and lightened her workload. As far as the hospital was concerned, things were running smoothly as Loughren and Cullen developed a strong bond as she took him under his wing and he got closer with her family. However, a suspicious death put the hospital in the crosshairs of authorities as there appeared to be a coverup going on. Though a reasonable audience member could probably connect the dots then and there, the way the film attempts to tie it all together didn’t quite work. Where it got interesting was how it put the relationship between Loughren and Cullen to the test as she unsurprisingly proved to be key to the case.

The best part of The Good Nurse was the performances of Chastain and Redmayne as they elevate the material. Chastain indisputably had more to do than Redmayne who had much less to work with. What could have worked as a two-handed character piece, barely worked as one. In spite of the material, Chastain was compelling to watch as Loughren while Redmayne’s Cullen was extremally-underdeveloped with Redmayne having to do most of the work on his own but he could only do so much.

In the end, The Good Nurse works for fans of Chastain and Redmayne. Otherwise, it will merely be drowned in a sea of similar thrillers.

*still courtesy of Netflix

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.