Director Tobias Lindholm has a penchant for making movies with a polished superficial sheen suggestive of far more depth than the hollowness they actually contain. He's like a college essayist whose impeccable grammar and engaging diction mask the fact that he's only skimmed his research sources and has failed to develop an original argument of any real depth or weight. I imagine this makes him an excellent conversationalist, too, as I'm not otherwise sure how he managed to secure an Oscar win for ANOTHER ROUND, which, in keeping with THE HUNT, was another slick but insubstantial film.
THE GOOD NURSE is a fine film. Redmayne and Chastain are consummate professionals, and they are engaging to watch. Everything from the screenplay to the set design and cinematography is perfectly tolerable, yet the film never justifies its existence beyond being a vehicle for more filmmaking accolades. I read the first few paragraphs of convicted killer Charlie Cullen's wikipedia page prior to watching the movie, and nothing presented in the movie went beyond the conventional vision that played out in my head while skimming. There's nothing surprising, thought-provoking, or truly memorable about this film. It tries to muster a message of condemnation against America's budget-strained, for-profit healthcare system, a message which is cheaply and stupidly manifested in the coldly villainous persona of a bureaucratic obfuscator played by Kim Dickens, but this message fails to amount to anything more than a glib shrug. It's perfectly possible to film a thrilling, razor-sharp indictment of failed accountability systems--see David Fincher's ZODIAC or the Netflix series UNBELIEVABLE--but this film doesn't bother to put in the effort. Its police procedural elements are hammy and stereotypical (never before have I been so confused by the line, "We need a body or we don't have a case!"), and if IMDb's Goofs page for THE GOOD NURSE is to be trusted, then they didn't put much effort into making the hospital scenes accurate either. This isn't a movie about reality; it's a character study about a killer who's ultimately a cipher and a (spoiler alert) "good nurse" who is doing the best she can to raise two spunky little girls on her own.
If this were a Lifetime movie, I would be inclined to say it was above average. But as a movie that probably generated six- or seven-figure paychecks for its director and two stars while purportedly bemoaning the struggles of the working class, it needs to do more than this.
THE GOOD NURSE is a fine film. Redmayne and Chastain are consummate professionals, and they are engaging to watch. Everything from the screenplay to the set design and cinematography is perfectly tolerable, yet the film never justifies its existence beyond being a vehicle for more filmmaking accolades. I read the first few paragraphs of convicted killer Charlie Cullen's wikipedia page prior to watching the movie, and nothing presented in the movie went beyond the conventional vision that played out in my head while skimming. There's nothing surprising, thought-provoking, or truly memorable about this film. It tries to muster a message of condemnation against America's budget-strained, for-profit healthcare system, a message which is cheaply and stupidly manifested in the coldly villainous persona of a bureaucratic obfuscator played by Kim Dickens, but this message fails to amount to anything more than a glib shrug. It's perfectly possible to film a thrilling, razor-sharp indictment of failed accountability systems--see David Fincher's ZODIAC or the Netflix series UNBELIEVABLE--but this film doesn't bother to put in the effort. Its police procedural elements are hammy and stereotypical (never before have I been so confused by the line, "We need a body or we don't have a case!"), and if IMDb's Goofs page for THE GOOD NURSE is to be trusted, then they didn't put much effort into making the hospital scenes accurate either. This isn't a movie about reality; it's a character study about a killer who's ultimately a cipher and a (spoiler alert) "good nurse" who is doing the best she can to raise two spunky little girls on her own.
If this were a Lifetime movie, I would be inclined to say it was above average. But as a movie that probably generated six- or seven-figure paychecks for its director and two stars while purportedly bemoaning the struggles of the working class, it needs to do more than this.