HOSPITAL CRIME SCENE

DIRECTOR RELIES ON ACTING ART TO CARRY PLOT THROUGH SCENES

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The worst kept true to life secret currently streaming is a film about a hospital nurse turned serial killer.

Director Tobias Lindholm develops this highly anticipated true crime story into a compelling piece of drama by using film art to create mystery and suspense in that magical way that only the movies can when everyone already is in-the-know. 

Jessica Chastain plays Amy Loughren a.k.a. the ‘Good Nurse’ who has a rare, life-threatening heart condition that puts her two young daughters at risk of becoming orphans.

Tobias begins this biographical film though with the suspect responding to a Code Blue. 

Eddie Redmayne plays Charles Cullen a.k.a. the ‘Serial Killer’.

Cullen meets Loughren during his first shift at his ninth hospital. Everything seems copasetic with both Intensive Care Unit nurses showing a nurturing side towards their patients and also towards each other. 

Chastain and Redmayne are cast well together with the former being given an effervescent orange glow on film and the latter being given a gray blunt appearance.

Tobias develops these characters in tandem with each other as the two leading screen personalities begin to spend time together away from the hospital. Cullen appears to be a loving doting father figure to Loughren’s children, but Loughren introducing her nurse colleague to the children soon proves to be a bad idea.

A hospital patient dies under suspicious circumstances. And the ensuing police narrative then quickly begins to dominate, thereby circumventing any ambiguity between the roles of the good and bad protagonists.

Nnamdi Asomugha plays police detective Danny Baldwin. And Noah Emmerich plays police detective Tim Braun. The investigative partners initially wonder why the police have been called to the hospital, but the secretiveness of the hospital administrative board sends up red flags that trigger their investigative curiosities.

Emmerich plays a toned-down version of his FBI screen persona developed for the television series about a convergence of FBI and American KGB operatives in The Americans (2013-2018), co-starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. 

Detective Braun starts with a blank slate and then gradually gains confidence as the partners build the case against Cullen.  

Asomugha shows how some basic honest police work chasing down leads can uncover the truth.

Tobias creates suspense with a music score and dark shadows. Routine hospital scenes develop a lot of soon-to-be-disclosed mystery as the little details of the secret are revealed.

The camera work is creative in the context of the tone and atmosphere of realism. No flash backs or time warps are put into play to create a deeper psycho drama than one might find in real time in a hospital ward or at a police crime scene.

Asomugha does make a cheeky play to ‘real time – time fraud’ when the hospital administrative board makes the evidence go away during a 7-week internal investigation before calling in the police. The unusually long delay leaves little evidence from which the police can begin an investigation. 

A few more scenes go by when the hospital administrator says something about ‘7 weeks’. And Baldwin retorts ‘8 weeks’ with a bit of terseness that inferrs another week has gone by since the previous time reference.

That’s movie magic in real time.

Asomugha and Emmerich are well cast for this narrative that is in most part compelled forward by the acting art shown in character studies.

Redmayne initially puts on the mask of a phantom serial killer who is overshadowed by the kindness of the good nurse. Chastain works through a range of emotions to develop trust in the goodness of her film character. This captivating acting overshadows Redmayne during several of the introductory scenes before the plot starts to gradually reverse.

As the police investigation closes in on Cullen, the madness and rage of the serial killer is revealed piece by piece.

Redmayne shows how the nurturing nurse’s mask falls apart incrementally as the protagonist’s deep dark secret becomes obviously more and more public.

The camera captures the character studies in a way that dominates the narrative but compels the film forward through the well-known biographical material. 

The film does go by in a good clip with a 2 hour 3 minute runtime. But if the material is not available for a longer biopic, then the material is not there. And the director wisely chose a shorter feature film release.

The Good Nurse is streaming on Netflix.