It is self-evident that when positions of authority and responsibility fall into the wrong hands, they can often be exploited, frequently at the cost of human life. The murder of George Floyd back in 2020 highlighted the issue of systemic racist discrimination among police forces across the United States. The tragic homicide at the merciless hand of police officer Derek Chauvin emphasized the urgent need for reform and demonstrated that even the very people we entrust to keep us safe have regularly been guilty of falling foul of their duty, posing more danger.
Throughout the recent Covid-19 pandemic, the world’s doctors and nurses have proved to be real-life superheroes. Arguably, they were gifted the greatest responsibility of them all, acting as the mediators between life and death for patients incapable of looking after themselves. Many were essentially doing God’s work. Those practicing medicine in hospitals and surgery rooms are seen as good people, the very ones who have your and your health’s best interests at heart. Yet, in director Tobias Lindholm’s recent Netflix release The Good Nurse, we are reminded of just how catastrophic it can be when that fundamental duty of care is placed in the palms of someone with the evilest intentions.
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Slipping Through the Net: Eddie Redmayne as Charlie Cullen
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Fact is regularly stranger than fiction, and in the case of the true story The Good Nurse documents, that statement certainly rings true. Based on the late career, and subsequent prosecution, of real-life serial-killer Charlie Cullen, the movie tells the story of how the nurse, based in-and-around the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was found guilty of murdering 29 patients (though, this number is believed to be in the hundreds) under his care in over nine hospitals and medical facilities in a period of 16 years.
Through a synthesis of menacingly calculated strategies and total manipulation of both patient’s and colleague’s trust, Cullen had craftily abused the hospital’s Pyxis system through a technological loophole, which meant his callous, immoral, and illegal activities went undetected for so many years. While actor Eddie Redmayne, on the face of it, isn’t an obvious choice to assume the mantle of a nefarious, homicidal nurse, what with his soft voice that is prone to cracking, gentle manner, and butter-wouldn’t-melt exterior, that being said, those attributes simultaneously make a plausible argument for him being the ideal candidate.
However, Redmayne’s rendition of Cullen is disputably lightweight for an actor who delivered Academy Award-winning performances in the past; there is a particular absence of conviction in his display of a complex man with a colored past and a predisposition to getting away with murder. He almost seems simply apathetic. Perhaps it is the screenplay’s downfall, instead — rather than engrossing the audience in this disturbing tale of murder and mayhem, we are handed the indifferent perpetrator on a plate.
The Portrayal of Amy Loughren
Alongside Redmayne is the brilliant Jessica Chastain as a fellow nurse, Amy Loughren, who would become key to the discovery of Cullen’s murderous ways. The Good Nurse is as much Amy’s story as it is Charlie’s, which is of great benefit to the film. The screenplay delves into Cullen’s exploits from her perspective as his colleague, friend, and confidant. Like Cullen, Loughren is very much a living, breathing, real-life person. Suffering from cardiomyopathy, Amy is a single mother of two daughters who had been working at a hospital in Somerset, New Jersey, deciding to withhold the information of her illness from her employer for fear it may jeopardize her employment if they were to know.
Cullen befriended Amy after leaving his previous nursing post (for an unspecified reason), and the pair struck up a budding friendship that would subsequently see Cullen tend to Amy’s children while she was at work. Through Amy Loughren’s observations while at work, her suspicions of her relatively new acquaintance were confirmed, and her active cooperation with the local police began.
The Good Nurse Reveals the True Reality of Difficult Hospital Work
Following Cullen’s conviction, Loughren told reporters that she went to visit him on several occasions, though this was due to her seeking closure that she had played no inadvertent part in any patient’s death. In this dramatization, Chastain is utterly spellbinding as Loughren, a suffering nurse and mother blinkered by the charisma and apparent harmlessness of her friend, falling victim to not just his manipulation, but to the hospital’s unforgiving shift work.
The Good Nurse reveals very little in the way of Cullen’s psyche during his fateful time at the aforementioned medical facilities. However, it does point toward an increasingly prominent issue within the industry, which is the deficiency in the number of working medical professionals, and the consequent strain it has placed on hospital’s and their overburdened workers.
Lindholm’s movie shines a spotlight on the desperation of healthcare centers not just in the states, but around the globe. It’s a desperation that people like Charlie Cullen can easily bypass, ignoring obligatory vetting procedures simply because hospitals are so massively understaffed, and the more hands on deck, the better. It analyzes the broader issue at hand, that those in charge of hospital recruitment neither have the time, nor the resources to turn away potential staff. In The Good Nurse, the horror of Cullen’s behavior is disturbing, but the state of the medical industry is sad as well.
