Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain star in Netflix's The Good Nurse based on the book of the true story of Charlie Cullen and Amy Loughren.
In The Good Nurse, the evidence is straightforward and relatively easy to understand – there's no needle to find in a haystack, no breadcrumbs to follow. The Good Nurse tries to straddle the line between intimate thriller biopic and grand societal commentary in a way that doesn't quite succeed either way. Still, if you like true crime and enjoy watching Actors Acting, The Good Nurse is a slow-burning, well-crafted film. From his first hunched-shouldered, shuffling footsteps, it is clear that Redmayne has chosen a particular vein in which to play Charlie — one of self-deprecation and relative anonymity. Strangely enough, the times when it's easiest to allow yourself to forget about the actors is when Redmayne and Chastain share scenes with easy-going camaraderie. The true-crime case of Charlie Cullen is familiar to many – particularly those from the United States.
The Netflix production stars Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren, a New Jersey nurse who learns her close friend and co-worker is a serial killer.
The film isn't the first adaptation of the murders. The Good Nurse isn't your typical true crime story. It was a tough story to tell, Redmayne said, but working with Chastain helped. "It's always dangerous to work with friends. They were totally dead in the water until this little angel, Amy." Another 2008 film, Killer Nurse, was inspired by the serial killer.
With a star-led cast, the Netflix film The Good Nurse has all the potential. Here's our official spoiler-free review.
[Eddie Redmayne](https://www.avclub.com/eddie-redmayne-good-nurse-interview-jessica-chastain-1849692234)), a nurse just hired to relieve some of her professional burdens. The second most interesting part of the film really is the hospital administrator’s refusal to act. Her physician wants her to take a medical leave of absence, but Amy needs the money and her health insurance after she is there for a year. The condition is so severe Amy’s doctor wants her to teach her oldest daughter the warning signs of having a stroke. [Charles Manson](https://readysteadycut.com/2019/05/18/film-review-charlie-says/), [Jeffrey Dahmer](https://readysteadycut.com/2022/09/21/who-is-jeffrey-dahmer-and-what-happened-to-the-serial-killer/), and [Ted Bundy](https://readysteadycut.com/2019/01/24/conversations-with-a-killer-the-ted-bundy-tapes-netflix-review/)‘s of the world, but those guys are all flash. A caring nurse who is carrying around a secret of her own, Amy is experiencing heart failure and has young kids.
Thanks to Loughren's help, Cullen was caught and arrested in December of 2003. A decade later, a journalist named Charles Graeber wrote a book on Cullen's ...
One of his victims was just 21 years old, per the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/nyregion/as-victims-relatives-watch-nurse-who-killed-29-gets-11-life-terms.html).He was also fired or forced out of at least six medical centers, the outlet reported. (According to some [reports](https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/serial-killer/prolific-serial-killer-nurse-charles-cullen-may-have-killed-as-many-as-400-patients), though, Cullen may have killed up to 400 people in his care.) [The Good Nurse](https://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/a41714995/jessica-chastain-legs-minidress-heels-the-good-nurse-photo/) tells the story of Cullen's crimes from the perspective of his friend and coworker, Amy Loughren. [The Good Nurse](https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a41722781/the-good-nurse-true-story-charles-cullen-amy-loughren/) tells the [terrifying tale](https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a41574730/the-watcher-netflix-theories/) of a nurse named Charles Cullen who murdered dozens of patients over the course of 16 years. He’s currently serving time at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, and his earliest possible parole date would be June 10, 2388. Cullen enlisted in the US Navy but was medically discharged in 1984 after attempting to take his own life. It’s hard to say for sure. [charged with the murder](https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a41251138/jeffrey-dahmer-now/) of 29 patients. Thanks to Loughren's help, Cullen was caught and arrested in December of 2003. [Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/nyregion/killer-donated-his-kidney-lawyer-says.html) says. IRL, after she learned what Cullen was doing, she helped authorities catch him. [The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/nyregion/killer-donated-his-kidney-lawyer-says.html).
The Good Nurse stars Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne and tells the story of serial killer Charles Cullen, who murdered of dozens of patients under his ...
“But...I was able to see how charismatic he was and how easy it was to be drawn in. In one instance he left a job over misconduct allegations when an elderly woman complained that he was not the nurse assigned to her but was continually entering her room to give her injections. The autopsy revealed a lethal level of digoxin in his system. In December 2003, Loughren asked Cullen to meet her at a restaurant and wore a wire. He enlisted in the the Navy shortly after. She was approached by detectives Tim Braun and Danny Baldwin, who were investigating the deaths of a few patients who had high levels of a drug called digoxin, which affects the heart, in their systems. The list was long, sometimes half a dozen in a night. Then, time and time again, Charlie ordered a restock from the pharmacy. After Cullen's arrest, he eventually confessed to 40 murders in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. She and Cullen were actually fairly close, working many night shifts in the intensive care unit together, which can be a bonding experience. How much of what is portrayed in the film really happened? Based on a true crime book of the same name by journalist Charles Graeber, the drama stars Eddie Redmayne as Cullen and Jessica Chastain as his co-worker Amy Loughren, who wore a wire to gain evidence that took Cullen down.
Krysty Wilson-Cairns, who wrote the new thriller, on the real-life events that inspired it.
We were walking out, and I said, ‘This is hard,’ and she was like, ‘This isn’t even the hardest things I’ve done this week.’ I said, ‘Well, you did catch a serial killer that one time,’ and she told me, ‘That’s not even the hardest thing I did. “Because you're hamstrung by what actually happened, that makes you have to be more inventive, more creative, and it makes you have to really double down into the essential,” the screenwriter says. “When we were about to go on stage at the Toronto International Film Festival, Amy and I were a bit nervous; it was the first time an audience had watched the film. “She was the person who used her humanity to awaken his,” she says. In The Good Nurse, Redmayne takes a chilling turn as Cullen, while Chastain plays Amy Loughren, another hospital nurse who befriends Cullen before realizing that something is terribly wrong and sets out to stop it. The Good Nurse, the new drama streaming now on Netflix, has all the makings of a classic thriller: There’s a seemingly unstoppable villain, a heroine forced to display incredible bravery, and stakes as high as they can possibly be.