The Good Nurse

In statements made since his arrest, convicted serial murderer Charlie Cullen has attested that he poisoned patients because he thought that otherwise they would go into cardiac arrest, and he was appalled by witnessing attempts at resuscitation. This dramatisation of his final months – the period in which he was working at Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey – never directly suggests a motive, but opens with such a scene, full of clamour and distress. Though the individual being treated is off camera, obscured by a wall, we see enough to understand how some people might find the experience traumatic. It’s about the only creative moment in this otherwise rather flaccid, by-the-numbers true crime film.

Eddie Redmayne plays Cullen, immersing himself in the character with his usual skill, so committed that he likely doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that the man is inherently very boring. Though he manages to come across as pleasant to colleague Amy (Jessica Chastain, also playing a real person), there’s no spark of interest about him, and he is given very little to talk about besides his job. The film uses the blue filters beloved of ‘gritty’ crime dramas and gives Chastain bags under her eyes to remind us how tough her job is. Amy is a single mother who is also coping with illness, so it’s not surprising if she looks a bit rough, but the way the film trades on this makes for depressing viewing, and with so little relief available, it has nowhere to go when it comes time to escalate the tension.

Chastain is its saving grace. Though prettified elsewhere in a way that doesn’t fit her character – directors seem unable to resist putting her in pastel silks – she goes above and beyond to give Amy some depth, taking her through the process of bonding with her new colleague, then developing suspicions about him, then trying to help the police and deal with the fact that he has befriended her children. It’s a bravura performance but is let down by pretty much everything else.

There’s unlikely to be a true crime fan out there who is not already familiar with the Cullen case. Scholars contend that murder in hospital environments – often construed as mercy killing, though the recipients of that ‘mercy’ are unlikely to get a say in it – is more common than generally thought, because it’s easy to conceal, with most of those eventually convicted for it having a large number of victims by the time they’re caught. There are hints at an interesting angle here as the film touches on Cullen’s history of work in nine other hospitals, but this more substantial material is not explored in depth, probably due to the inherest legal difficulties in doing so. The case remains a legal minefield, which means that what we get here is stripped down, basic and predictable.

What is disappointing is that, with these difficulties in mind, little effort is msde to strengthen the story by exploring the characters of the victims, who are presented as little more than statistics, with a couple of minutes’ screentime at best. Instead we get moody shots of corridors and a lot of nervous glances between the leads. A slow build approach has nowhere in particular to go. Perhaps this looked good on paper. In practice, it badly needs a shot of adrenaline.