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Given their propensity to go big, there’s something refreshing about seeing Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne play minor keys in Tobias Lindholm ’s “The Good Nurse,” which premiered at TIFF before an October bow on Netflix. The problem is that the whole movie is in minor key. It’s as if respect for the admittedly brave protagonist of this true story was so overwhelming that the creators forgot to give their film a pulse. "The Good Nurse" skims along the surface of some issues—like a hospital system so broken in its overprotective state—and then reduces its characters to a short list of definable traits, pushing them into a thriller that does have admirable restraint given the genre’s propensity to over-do projects like this one. Still, one shouldn’t mistake a serious tonal approach for depth.

Amy Loughren (Chastain) is a nurse at an average New Jersey hospital, trying to balance being a single mother with her high-stress job. This gets even harder when she’s diagnosed with a cardiac condition that could kill her if she doesn’t get a heart transplant in time. She keeps the diagnosis from her bosses, staying on at work because she hasn’t been there long enough to get the health insurance needed to deal with it. The heart issue adds a ticking time bomb aspect to “The Good Nurse” in that if the tension of what’s about to happen causes too high a heart rate in Amy, she could die.

She thinks the opposite is going to happen when she meets the kindly Charles Cullen (Redmayne), a new nurse who befriends Amy and offers to help her with her patients, and even with taking care of her children. At first, Charles seems like a lifesaver, a colleague who knows Amy’s secret, and wants to be there to help. Amy has no idea that the hospital, led by an icy Kim Dickens as its callous representative, has alerted the local authorities to a concerning situation involving the inexplicable death of one of Amy’s patients. With little warning, a woman coded, and an abnormal amount of insulin was found in her system. She was clearly double dosed, and the hospital really only let the cops know so they could be prepared for any legal liability. The investigating officers, played by Noah Emmerich and Nnamdi Asomugha , start digging a little deeper and find a disturbing work history for Mr. Cullen involving nine other hospitals, all of which he left with rumors swirling. And then another one of Amy’s patients dies.

Would Charles Cullen, who it is confirmed killed at least 29 people—though it's suspected the total may have been in the hundreds—have ever been caught without the courage of someone within the system? The truth is that the lawsuit-terrified operations that hired and fired Cullen didn’t come close to performing their moral duties, shuffling a serial killer off to his next victim. And as long as that kind of business-over-ethics principle was in place, Cullen could have continued. Lindholm was clearly drawn to the hero arc of this true story, the one person who broke the pattern by helping authorities, even though she had so much to risk to do so.

And that’s about where the development of these characters ended. We learn so little about Amy and Charles beyond the facts of the case. Amy is a mother with a heart condition. That’s pretty much the extent of it. Yes, there’s something to be said for a thriller that focuses so intently on its true crime story that it feels like it almost traps you in it, but this movie doesn’t do that either because it's too languid. It’s a two-hour version of a remarkably thin screenplay, one that often mistakes slow for subtle. And maybe it’s a Netflix thing where so many new shows and movies have to look like “Ozark,” but I was begging someone to turn on a light once or twice. Some filmmakers mistake low lighting and speaking quietly for important drama, and it’s just silly. But it speaks to how performative too much of “The Good Nurse” is in the end.

In the end, the cast does a lot of heavy lifting that will get “The Good Nurse” to great movie status for some people when it premieres on Netflix. Like I said, there is something marvelous about watching these two great performers play quiet, soft-spoken characters for at least most of a film—Redmayne goes a little broad in the final scenes, but he’s earned the release, which is actually more powerful because of the register he's been in up to that point. And the supporting actors are good too, particularly Asomugha, who could easily lead a gritty detective series that I’d watch every week. I like these actors. I just wish they were in a better movie.

This review was filed from the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12th. It premieres on Netflix on October 26.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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The Good Nurse (2022)

Rated R for language.

121 minutes

Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren

Eddie Redmayne as Charles Cullen

Noah Emmerich as Tim Braun

Nnamdi Asomugha as Danny Baldwin

Kim Dickens

Devyn McDowell

Tobias Lindholm

Writer (book)

Charles Graeber
Krysty Wilson-Cairns

Cinematographer

Jody Lee Lipes
Michael Rolt
Adam Nielsen

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The Good Nurse Reviews

The Good Nurse is an Achingly Dull Foray into Medical Malpractice

Full Review | Nov 2, 2023

It barely scratches the surface and leaves a less resounding solution to figure out what is wrong with everything. It’s a political thriller, but it barely leaves a mark that leaves a profound impact on the faults of the system.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2023

This is kinda of a typical true crime movie than that Netflix churns out, but what makes it better is the performances of these two Oscar winners, Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne. They really elevate the material.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Aug 10, 2023

The heart of the film comes from the strong work of both Chastain and Redmayne, who seem to be at the top of their game with their attempts to tell a true story with compassion and care for the real victims of Cullen's killing spree.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

While "The Good Nurse" can be uneven, it's not without deeply effective moments.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 16, 2023

flips the serial-killer narrative on its head, making it all the more enigmatic in refusing to offer up pat assessments or easy explanations

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 27, 2023

It seems to want to be both salacious true crime and thought-provoking medical drama, but it doesn't quite commit to either, leaving "The Good Nurse" a muddled derivative of many other more engaging murder stories.

Full Review | Mar 3, 2023

The Good Nurse is suffused in shades of tedious grey. Its visual language too indistinct and colourless to register as little more than a play by play of events, rather than a film that is astute about the dynamics of its crimes.

Full Review | Jan 30, 2023

The film's deliberately paced editing and eerie score successfully capture the essence of feeling unsettled.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 28, 2023

It is the...journey that Amy and the audience travel towards...the truth about Charlie that make The Good Nurse a riveting watch, greatly aided by two mammoth performances at its center that make the entire upsetting experience well worth it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 12, 2023

A slow-build approach has nowhere in particular to go... In practice, it badly needs a shot of adrenaline.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 9, 2023

The Good Nurse suffers from a few setbacks...the first act’s pacing, a longer-than-needed run time, and an unconvincing performance from Chastain. Redmayne delivers an unsettlingly charming performance...if you can hang in, the ending is pretty decent.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.5/10 | Jan 4, 2023

The Good Nurse this a very good drama thriller based on a true story. Oscar Winners Chastain and Redayne are unstoppable in this, they individually deliver great emotional performance & yet at the epicenter is their chemistry together in very harsh story

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Dec 27, 2022

A pretty solid true life drama that I believe works as well as it does because [the filmmakers don't] try and turn Charles Graeber's non-fiction novel into a thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 23, 2022

Because Eddie Redmayne is so good at hiding emotions, he could be under the lights of an operating room and still get buy-in. When his past is revealed, the change is better than any since Norman Bates’ in “Psycho.”

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 20, 2022

A sobering thriller that’s ostensibly about a serial killer, but more concerned about the healthcare system that allowed him to operate for 15 years before he was finally brought to justice.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 19, 2022

Frustrating Netflix true crime-drama that never delves deep enough. Odd - since Netflix released a documentary about the same serial killer, Charles Cullen, two weeks later.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 1, 2022

The Good Nurse does present a relatively accurate portrait of one of the most prolific serial killers in recent American history.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 30, 2022

Our titular “Good Nurse,” Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain) is what we call a trope magnet. She’s a single mother who works too hard, who loves her kids and never stops, with gentle hands and the heart of a fighter.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Nov 28, 2022

Sensationalism can often be used as a crutch to fall back on, but Netflix’s upcoming true-life thriller The Good Nurse wisely focuses on the bigger picture rather than the horrific crimes themselves, which is to the film’s immense benefit.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 23, 2022

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The Good Nurse review: The call is coming from inside the ER

Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain play two nurses on very different sides of the first-do-no-harm coin in a cagey, compelling true-life mystery.

Leah Greenblatt is the critic at large at Entertainment Weekly , covering movies, music, books, and theater. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and has been writing for EW since 2004.

If biology really is destiny, Eddie Redmayne 's face makes a fantastic case for innocence: The man is a marble faun, a freckled daisy, a milky shard of English porcelain so delicate and winsome he couldn't possibly be anything but blameless. That disconnect brings a great, discomfiting tension to The Good Nurse , a methodical and smartly wrought psychological thriller that plays in limited release this week before arriving on Netflix Oct. 26.

Redmayne plays the real-life intensive-care nurse Charles Cullen, whose notorious story is easy enough to Google, though refreshing the details is hardly a prerequisite; it's enough to know that in 2002 he landed at the same New Jersey hospital as a fellow nurse named Amy Loughren ( Jessica Chastain ), working nights on the emergency ward. Amy is the kind of R.N. who treats bedside manner as at least half the job; she's unfailingly kind and cheerful, and conscientious to a fault. She's also got two little girls at home she hardly gets to see — their dad, neither seen nor identified, is a non-factor — and a serious heart condition she can't reveal to her employers or even treat until her insurance kicks in several months down the road.

Enter Charles, the dream coworker: Amiable, empathetic, and eager to help, he materializes at Parkfield Memorial like a gift from the night-shift gods, immediately leaning in to carry the load of his overextended coworkers. Soon Charles and Amy's easy rapport has spilled over from carpooling and shared midnight meals to a sort of quasi family life with her daughters at home, though their friendship remains strictly platonic; he's still dealing with the afterburn of an ugly divorce, and unsteady custody of two girls of his own. But isn't it strange that so many patients in the hospital's care — an elderly woman with a hardly life-threatening skin condition, a seemingly healthy new mom — keep coding out and dying?

A pair of local police officers (Nnamdi Asomugha and The Americans ' Noah Emmerich ) are brought in to investigate one of those incidents, though their presence is treated mostly as a pesky formality: Parkfield executives have already conducted their own internal review, and seem oddly resistant to supplying any kind of documentation, or even a body. ( Fear the Walking Dead 's Kim Dickens , her blooming panic barely contained beneath a placid middle-management exterior, makes for a canny model of queasy corporate fealty á la Michael Clayton -era Tilda Swinton .) Chastain, tremulous yet determined, brings something gratifyingly grounded to her everywoman hero, and an eerie, pitch-perfect Redmayne, wearing Charlie's nice-guy drag like a battering ram, lets his mask slip so incrementally that the final scenes feel like a true terrifying rupture.

Danish director Tobias Lindholm ( A War ), working from a lean, unfussy script by 1917 screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns , shapes his story like an elevated docudrama, nimbly drawing out the thriller elements even as he settles comfortably into the small domestic details of Amy's world, and the more traditional cop-procedural overtones of Asomugha and Emmerich's stymied efforts to further their case. It feels like a faint insult to say that The Good Nurse could be a premium-cable product from long ago, one of those lightly prestige-y Sunday-night movies Showtime or HBO used to make. But it's also one crafted with sturdy, consummate skill, burnished by two Oscar winners who don't stint on their performances just because most people will end up seeing Nurse on a small screen. And when, exactly, did that kind of filmmaking stop being more than good enough? Grade: B+

‘The Good Nurse’ Review: Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne Lead a Soulful and Devastating True-Crime Drama

Tobias Lindholm's take on a real-life serial killer shielded by a for-profit system is low-key, elegant and unexpectedly haunting.

By Tomris Laffly

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Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain in The Good Nurse

During a career of 16 years that spanned numerous East Coast hospitals since the late ‘80s, real-life nurse Charles Cullen confessed to murdering at least 29 patients with a fatal cocktail of drugs he dripped into his victims’ bloodstream. That figure was only his confirmed body count, however. As a title card suggests at the end of Tobias Lindholm ’s shrewd and absorbing drama “ The Good Nurse ” — a Netflix original that just premiered at Toronto — the real number of his victims was predicted to be as high as a blood-curdling 400.

Popular on Variety

But Wilson-Cairns and Lindholm, the director of the elegantly restrained Danish films “A War” and “A Hijacking,” thankfully demonstrate early on that they have little interest in sensationalist run-of-the-mill embellishments. Instead they maintain a grounded focus on the immense shortcomings of the American healthcare system as a privatized and for-profit business with little regard for patient well-being. That choice pays off enormously in the end, with a memorable and emotionally complex political parting note.

“The Good Nurse” swiftly spells out her moral traits in economical introductory scenes. For starters, we learn that Amy is a sacrificing single mother of two as well as a genuine nurturer at work, one who secretly lets her patients’ loved ones stay overnight (“I won’t tell if you don’t”), despite repeated reminders from her supervisor that times are tough, belts need to be tightened and they can’t afford to run a hotel for the relatives. We also learn about her life-threatening heart disease, requiring expensive surgery that Amy’s insurance won’t cover until further benefits kick in, in about four months.

It’s infuriating to witness the health struggles of the helpless Amy, who should normally be first in line to receive necessary urgent care as an indispensable caregiver herself. But Amy knows the unfair system inside out, well aware of the fact that she has to lay low and keep her condition a secret (otherwise she’ll be fired), until her insurance will cover her long-term disability benefits. It’s perhaps due to her exhaustion and powerlessness that Amy doesn’t keep a closer eye on Charlie when he first joins her shift as the hospital’s newbie, proving to be a quick study as well as a sympathetic companion to the overworked nurse.

The two quickly bond, with Charlie lending Amy and her kids a helping hand, respecting her secret and even nursing her with affection and stolen medication from the hospital stock. But when Amy’s patients, all drawn with humane touches, start expiring at random under her nose, she decides to partner with the police, especially once it becomes clear that the hospital would do anything to avoid liability amid growing suspicions of malpractice.

Redmayne mostly delivers a believably disquieting performance as the reserved murderer, save for an out-of-place outburst where he overemphasizes Charlie’s disturbed psyche. (Let’s say that if Redmayne were to get Oscar nominated with this role, the said showy moment would be his “awards clip” — it’s that scenery-chewing.) Chastain, on the other hand, is simply magnetic in a low-key role, more impressive on the whole than her flashy, Oscar-winning performance in last year’s “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”. Subtly projecting love, dignity and empathy, Chastain brings Amy to life as a flesh-and-blood do-gooder, especially shining in the film’s smaller moments as a sharp but vulnerable soul who needs to stop her friend from causing further harm.

Elsewhere, Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich make sturdy impressions as a pair of hard-nosed detectives out of a retro cop drama, supplementing the procedural mechanics of “The Good Nurse” against the hospital’s antagonistic suit, capably portrayed by Kim Dickens.

Reviewed online, Sept. 7, 2022. (In Toronto Film Festival — Special Presentations.) Running time: 122 MIN.

Production: A Netflix presentation of a Protozoa Pictures, FilmNation Entertainment production. Producers: Scott Franklin, Darren Aronofsky, Michael A. Jackman. Executive producers: Ari Handel, Glen Basner, Jonathan Filley, Josh Stern.
Crew: Director: Tobias Lindholm. Screenplay: Krysty Wilson-Cairns, based on the book "The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder" by Charles Graeber. Camera: Jody Lee Lipes. Editor: Adam Nielsen. Music: Biosphere.
With: Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne, Nnamdi Asomugha, Kim Dickens, Malik Yoba, Alix West Lefler, Noah Emmerich.

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‘The Good Nurse’ Review: Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne Shine in Disturbing True-Crime Drama

Directed by Tobias Lindholm, 'The Good Nurse' will seep under your skin, but shows the importance of compassion and care in the world.

In the horrific opening moments of The Good Nurse , we are shown just how quickly the world around someone can go from compassionate to cruel. From outside a hospital room, we see a patient crashing, as the machines go wild, beeping out its warning signals. First to assist in the room is Charlie Cullen ( Eddie Redmayne ), a nurse who comes to the patient’s side, calling for help, as the patient’s life is clearly in danger. As other doctors and nurses come in to aid, Charlie slowly moves to the back of the room, observing the scene. His attempt at kindness slowly fades from his face, as he adopts a more careless, inhuman look, watching the destruction he’s helped cause. In a job that asks him to do no harm, Charlie has realized just how much harm he can do and revels in this type of destruction.

A few years later, Charlie moves to a new hospital where he meets Amy Loughren ( Jessica Chastain ), a single mother who discovers she needs a heart transplant, yet she still has a few more months before she can get health coverage at her job. Amy is a great doctor who fights against the bureaucracy of her hospital to help those in need and caring even when it threatens to put her own life at risk—as when she moves a patient in bed by herself as she struggles to catch her breath. Charlie and Amy quickly strike up a new friendship, with Charlie agreeing to help Amy until she gets health coverage. But when patients start dying mysteriously, all the facts start to lead to Charlie, and a pair of cops ( Noah Emmerich and Nnamdi Asomugha ) start coming around and asking questions, Amy does what she can to once again help her patients, regardless of the cost.

Directed by Tobias Lindholm , the co-writer of Another Round and director of A War , and written by 1917 and Last Night in Soho co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns , The Good Nurse is an unnerving and tense drama that is terrifying in its simplicity. Cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes ( Manchester by the Sea , I Know This Much Is True ) knows how to light a film in a way that feels distressing even in the positive moments, and the haunting score by Biosphere leaves the audience in a continual state of unease, even when there’s nothing to fear.

RELATED: 'The Good Nurse': First Photos Show Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne in True Crime Thriller

Wilson-Cairns’ screenplay, which is based on a true story, is largely a battle of wills, dealing with who knows what and when. Once we start to see the pain Charlie can cause, The Good Nurse becomes about why someone who can put on such a kind face could do such atrocities. Wilson-Cairns does this by showing us this hospital through Amy’s eyes instead, as we have empathy for the patients that come through and put their lives in her hands. We see how even the simplest acts of tenderness can mean the world to someone during one of the worst times in their lives, and how just a little care can go a long way. Even before we know what Charlie can do, we can already see the difference in both Charlie and Amy’s way of doing their jobs, and how even that little extra goodwill can mean so much.

The Good Nurse is a film that needs two fantastic performances to make this concept effective, and both Redmayne and Chastain are doing excellent work here. Through Chastain, we see the quiet affection that her job requires, and once she discovers the truth about Charlie, she’s able to use this tool to draw him in closer and attempt to get him to confess. Chastain gives a wonderfully subtle performance, as we can see the horror in her eyes when she deals with Charlie after discovering his secret, but she also knows that she has to keep her cool and attempt to not let on what she knows. For a person whose work is largely reliant on understanding and sensitivity, Charlie’s lack of both makes him an understandable challenge for her.

But truly impressive is Redmayne, in what might be his best performance yet. Charlie almost has a Norman Bates-ian quality to him, as the audience understands how someone could be drawn to his friendship and quiet hospitality that he gives to some. Charlie might be pure evil, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care for Amy, and his true sinister nature, mixed with his general attempts to be a good person with Amy is a difficult balance to maintain. Charlie is a slow-burn of a character and as the walls start to close in on him, Redmayne is allowed to let loose in a way that is both powerful and horrific. Redmayne plays Charlie like a man hiding his true nature, and once we see what dangers lie within, it’s impossible for him to put that beast back in its cage. But again, it’s that mixture of likability and the sheer indifference for others that makes Charlie such a potent and believable monster.

While The Good Nurse explores how the hospital administrative boards could allow someone like Charlie to get away with his crimes and even thrive in his ability to kill, it never quite digs as deep into this side of the story as it maybe should. The relationship between Charlie and Amy is so fascinating that it takes up the majority of the runtime, while the police investigation into the hospital coverup of what is actually going on gets pushed to the back burner.

The Good Nurse is a shocking drama that seeps under your skin with its ferocity and terror. Yet Lindholm makes this story about a disturbing individual into a film about how important kindness and consideration for others can mean in the larger scheme of things. Whether through assistance when cold red tape of healthcare gets in the way of people in their time of need, or how the most basic amount of human decency can change a person’s outlook, The Good Nurse shows that even the smallest light can shine in the darkness.

The Good Nurse is now streaming on Netflix.

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The good nurse, common sense media reviewers.

Respectful true crime drama has strong language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Do the right thing.

Amy (who's based on a real person) is brave, compa

Female-driven story. A Black detective is portraye

A character in poor health realizes that she and o

Nudity in a clinical context: A patient's breasts

Strong language includes "crap," "hell," "s--t," "

Patients are overdosed in a medical facility.

Positive Messages

Positive role models.

Amy (who's based on a real person) is brave, compassionate, and displays integrity. As the sole provider for her two girls, life can be tough, but she's got grit and doesn't complain. She puts others' needs first on a daily basis, even when it's easier and safer for her to just look out for herself.

Diverse Representations

Female-driven story. A Black detective is portrayed positively. The police chief is also Black.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

A character in poor health realizes that she and others are in grave danger and is clearly distressed as she puts herself at risk to save them. Patients in the ICU include someone whose skin is peeling off and a banged-up crash survivor. Murder "weapon" is not visually violent, but the idea of a health care professional preying on the sick and vulnerable at a hospital may create unnecessary fear and distrust. Sharp tones and raised voices.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Nudity in a clinical context: A patient's breasts are exposed in a long scene.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes "crap," "hell," "s--t," "screw that," and more than one use of "f--k." Exclamations include "oh my God!" and "Jesus!"

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Good Nurse is the true story of how nurse Amy Loughren ( Jessica Chastain ) courageously brought down a hospital serial killer ( Eddie Redmayne ). Amy's got grit: She's a single mom who doesn't complain -- she just does what she needs to do to care for her two girls, herself, and her patients. There's limited iffy content (though ICU patients include someone whose skin is peeling off and a banged-up crash survivor), but the story will appeal more to adults than to teens or kids. And while there's no on-camera violence, it's scary to think about a caregiver ending the lives of vulnerable, trusting patients. After a woman dies in a hospital, her body is prepped for the next stage, and her breasts are exposed for a long time. Strong language includes "s--t," "f--k," "oh my God," and more. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In THE GOOD NURSE, single mom Amy Loughren ( Jessica Chastain ) works overnights in the ICU at New Jersey's Parkfield Hospital, trying to hide her own heart condition until she's eligible for benefits. When new nurse Charlie ( Eddie Redmayne ) discovers her secret, he befriends her and helps her both at work and at home. But Amy starts to think that Charlie might have a dangerous secret of his own. The movie is based on real events.

Is It Any Good?

In the true crime era, this drama earns points for telling the story of a serial killer from the point of view of the friend who stopped him. With excellent performances by Chastain and Redmayne (guided by the real-life Amy, who actively consulted behind the scenes), viewers will be shaken: Can a serial killer be compassionate, caring, and unsympathetically murderous? And if you realized your best friend was a killer, would you have the courage to go to the police and participate in their arrest? This is a profile in courage, and Amy is a true role model, showing strength, resilience, tenacity, and deep-rooted integrity.

At one point, Charlie covers a patient who's died and mentions giving her dignity. The same could be said for how director Tobias Lindholm handles the movie's murders, avoiding victim exploitation. Since the story is told from the point of view of Amy and the detectives investigating an unexpected death of a hospital patient, we're watching an unfolding mystery, rather than an American Psycho- type killing spree. Lindholm chooses to present the story as something that could happen to anyone. But the sober camera filter, combined with Lindholm's steady approach and avoidance of instigating false fear, means the story is told with a sophistication that's more likely to appeal to adults than teens.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Amy's courage and perseverance . Why are these important character strengths? What would you have done in her shoes?

Great storytelling has characters facing high stakes: What were the stakes for Amy?

Discuss the unsensational way the murders were portrayed. How does that contrast with most movies and TV shows in which someone is killed?

Why do you think true crime is a popular genre?

Discuss the compassion demonstrated by Amy and Charlie. Do you think Charlie's compassion is sincere to Amy? To his patients?

Movie Details

In theaters : October 19, 2022
On DVD or streaming : October 26, 2022
Cast : Jessica Chastain , Eddie Redmayne , Nnamdi Asomugha
Director : Tobias Lindholm
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
Studio : Netflix
Genre : Drama
Topics : Great Girl Role Models
Character Strengths : Courage , Integrity
Run time : 121 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : language
Last updated : February 17, 2023

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The Good Nurse review – Jessica Chastain is out to catch Eddie Redmayne’s serial killer

Based on the real-life story of a nurse who apparently killed hundreds of patients, this is a creepily watchable thriller with the subtlest hint of Fatal Attraction

S creenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns has crafted a nifty procedural thriller based on the true-crime case of Charles Cullen , the New Jersey nurse who in 2003 was finally arrested after apparently killing hundreds of patients over the years by covertly administering lethal, intravenous overdoses. The director is Tobias Lindholm, the film-maker and writer who has also worked with Thomas Vinterberg on The Hunt and Another Round; Eddie Redmayne is the insidiously personable and caring Cullen, and Jessica Chastain plays his co-worker, an overworked fellow nurse called Amy Loughren – a real-life figure who really did befriend Cullen, suspect the worst and work with the police to get him caught.

Single mom Amy is under terrible strain at work and secretly prone to faintness but she still needs more months in the job before she is eligible for health benefits. Her new best friend Charlie offers to help her, look after her daughter when she’s working late, cover up her cardiac condition and even show her how to steal meds from the hospital supply. So Amy becomes unknowingly complicit in his dysfunction and a quasi-patient figure for Charlie; someone that he wants to make dependent on him and a queasy hint of his larger compulsion. The hospital authorities themselves are uneasily aware of unexplained deaths but do not want to admit to it, like all Cullen’s previous employers, and so conspire to obstruct the investigation from the two dogged cops, Detectives Danny Baldwin (Nnamdi Asomugha) and Tim Braun (veteran character player Noah Emmerich).

Redmayne gives a cool, calm performance, whose blandly handsome face becomes a weird mask of self-pity and denial. There are interesting and amusing hints of Fatal Attraction about the way Amy will come home to find Charlie already in her apartment, smiling benignly, having told the babysitter she can go home. In fact, I wonder how a screenwriter like James Dearden or Joe Eszterhas would have handled this – with a lot more unsubtle stabs of fear, perhaps, or more mask-slippage moments for Charlie. Lindholm and Wilson-Cairns clearly want to be less brazen, but perhaps the film could have got under Charlie’s bland surface more. A creepily watchable drama nonetheless.

The Good Nurse is released on 19 October in cinemas and on 26 October on Netflix.

Drama films
Crime films
Eddie Redmayne
Jessica Chastain
The Good Nurse

Review: Jessica Chastain is good as ‘The Good Nurse,’ but Eddie Redmayne is bad as the bad nurse

A male and female nurse in scrubs sit on the ground.

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In the opening shot of “The Good Nurse,” a slow, steady, unilluminating drip of a medical mystery, a serial killer in scrubs named Charles Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) watches his victim die. The patient has gone into convulsions, and Charles, the nurse who sounded the alarm, stands back as the doctors swoop in and try in vain to save the day. In a perhaps inadvertently telling gesture, the camera eases the suffering, flatlining patient out of the frame and creeps slowly toward Charles, whose inscrutable expression is meant to chill you to the bone. It’s as if the murderous satisfaction he feels — and the anxious concern he’s trying to project — have somehow canceled each other out, leaving only a curious, malevolent blankness.

Redmayne, an actor who tends to call attention to his own subtlety, works hard to make that blankness sinister. (The ominously pulsing score composed by Biosphere tries even harder.) It isn’t sinister, though; it’s tiresomely obvious. Even as the doctors respond to a code blue, the movie throws up its own “Uh-oh, maniac alert!” signal to the audience, establishing Charles as a teasing enigma that will presumably be unraveled by story’s end. Why did the real-life Cullen spend his 16-year nursing career murdering patient after patient, injecting their IV bags with lethal doses of insulin, digoxin and other medications? (He confessed to killing 40 people between 1988 and 2003; it’s estimated that the real number may have been as high as 400.)

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A quick scroll through Cullen’s Wikipedia page turns up some potential clues: childhood bullying, multiple suicide attempts, his parents’ untimely deaths. None of these details — or an early stint in the U.S. Navy, where he was further harassed and bullied — appear in Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ screenplay, which she adapted from Charles Graeber’s 2013 book, “The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder.” For a while, that omission feels like the right decision, born of a principled refusal to sentimentalize a killer or ascribe his actions to a tidy, convenient set of motives. Instead, the director, Tobias Lindholm, keeps Charles at a distance, easing him in and out of the story at key moments and drawing continual attention to his practiced bedside manner and warm, solicitous smile.

It helps that when we first see Charles again, after that clunker of a prologue, it’s through the welcoming eyes of a colleague, Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain), who’s also based on a real-life individual. Chastain’s strong, unfussy performance conveys Amy’s professional expertise, tireless work ethic and unfeigned compassion for those under her care; she’s every inch the good nurse of the title. She’s also a victim of the overwhelmed, underfunded healthcare system she works for: A single mom with a heart condition that she doesn’t dare disclose to her employers, Amy keeps working her long, stressful nights and ungodly hours, hoping she can hold out for just a few more months until her health insurance kicks in.

She’s grateful, then, when Charles joins her on her shifts, especially when he finds out about her illness and agrees to keep it a secret. He becomes, in a sense, her own personal caretaker, on hand to relieve her workload and even babysit her two young daughters (Devyn McDowell and Alix West Lefler). Even if they weren’t such immediately close friends, Charles would be the last person Amy would suspect of wrongdoing, even after some of their patients begin to die under mysterious circumstances. It will fall to two police detectives (Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich, a nicely efficient pair) to focus suspicion on Charles, who over the last few years has worked at nine different hospitals — none of which are willing to speak about his employment, or about the similarly suspicious deaths that occurred on his watch.

And so “The Good Nurse” becomes a larger indictment of the ruthlessly capitalistic medical establishment that, rather than confront its own considerable liability, shuttled Cullen from one hellish appointment to the next. You might be reminded, as I was, of the Catholic Church’s well-documented sexual abuse cover-ups, its habit of quietly relocating accused priests to new and unsuspecting parishes. You might also be reminded of movies, like “Spotlight,” that chronicled the unraveling of those conspiracies with a cool, methodical intelligence that “The Good Nurse” attempts to match here.

A woman sits across a table from two police detectives.

The Danish-born Lindholm, here making his first English-language feature, came to international attention with his tense, restrained dramas “A Hijacking” and “A War.” (More recently, he co-wrote Thomas Vinterberg’s Oscar-winning “Another Round” and directed the Danish crime series “The Investigation.”) He has a low-key visual approach — including a dim lighting scheme that suggests the hospital is behind on its utility payments — and a natural feel for procedural mechanics, like when he’s teasing out the details of how Charles manages to manipulate the hospital’s Pyxis medication-dispensing machine.

To his credit, Lindholm also acknowledges the human impact of the crimes, lingering especially on two men devastated by the loss of their loved ones and determined to help ensure it doesn’t happen again. In these moments, you get the sense, amplified by the title, that Lindholm is genuinely moved and even energized by goodness, which is why it’s easy to stay invested in Amy as she gradually realizes the extent of Charles’ crimes and becomes determined to stop them. What seems to mystify and even bore Lindholm, at least in this instance, is evil: He never gets a grip on Charles as a character, and neither does Redmayne, whose insinuatingly friendly-creepy manner gives way to ludicrous interrogation-room histrionics in the final stretch.

It’s worth noting that “The Good Nurse” is being released by Netflix, a frequent exploiter of the public’s insatiable appetite for true-crime narratives, as evidenced by countless movies and series including its controversial recent hit “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” Partly because of the comparatively impersonal nature of Cullen’s crimes, many of which he committed without even laying a hand on his victims, “The Good Nurse” operates at a more tasteful remove. Admittedly, it’s a relief that the movie keeps the murders off-camera, that the worst offense we actually see Charles commit, really, is the crime of clinginess. What it isn’t is especially insightful or memorable. Just because evil is banal doesn’t mean a movie has to be.

‘The Good Nurse’

Rated: R, for language Running time: 2 hours, 1 minute Playing: Los Feliz Theater, Los Angeles; Bay Theatre, Pacific Palisades; starts streaming Oct. 26 on Netflix

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The Good Nurse review – a solid and steady thriller

With a star-led cast, the Netflix film The Good Nurse has all the potential. Here’s our official spoiler-free review.

Hundreds of films have been made about real-life killers or those with the “serial” stamp of approval. Sure, you have your Charles Manson , Jeffrey Dahmer , and Ted Bundy ‘s of the world, but those guys are all flash. What about a story about one that quietly goes around without looking for fame or the type of limelight cameras can provide? That’s where Charles Cullen and the story of The Good Nurse come in, an under-the-radar faux angel of mercy killer estimated to have murdered almost four hundred patients over two states, dozens of hospitals, and over 16 years. And no one bothered to stop him.

That’s until one nurse at that New Jersey hospital, Amy Loughren ( Jessica Chastain ), started collaborating with him. A caring nurse who is carrying around a secret of her own, Amy is experiencing heart failure and has young kids. 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.

It’s a demanding job working overnights on the ICU floor with a hospital under financial stress of its own. She has been experiencing episodes of tachycardia and is beginning to make her heart beat out of rhythm repeatedly. That’s when she meets Charles ( Eddie Redmayne ), a nurse just hired to relieve some of her professional burdens. They hit it off famously, as “Chamy” become inseparable at work and home. Charles helps with the kids and pledges to get his new BFF to the one-year finish line to qualify for health insurance so she can get a heart transplant.

That’s when things get tragic and strange all at the same time. Many of her patients pass away when they may be used to once a month. This is happening weekly or more. Somehow, some patients end up with insulin in their bodies, and no one knows how the medication ended up in her patient’s systems.

Directed by Tobias Lindholm ( Another Round ) and working from a script from 1917′ s Krysty Wilson-Cairns, this is a straightforward thriller that plays it too safe but still manages to generate enough suspense to be engaging. While much of that is contingent on walking into the film oblivious — don’t blame the writer here, the trailer takes away any ambiguity, and the studio marketers are playing up the Cullen angle — the tight direction keeps the storytelling tense, while the lead performances from Chastain and Redmayne help sustain more suspense than expected.

The Good Nurse is adapted from Charles Graeber’s The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder , a book that is more reporter and fact-driven, which the film could have used more of. The script plays up multiple scenes of heart issues to build a stronger bond between both characters. (There was a single incident where Cullen assisted Loughren when she had breathing problems). The second most interesting part of the film really is the hospital administrator’s refusal to act. While their stone face demeanor and lack of action without explanation add a bit of intrigue, that aspect of the story would have added greater depth to the script.

The Good Nurse may be too obvious and straightforward for its own good. And that’s not always a bad thing, but it can be a double-edged sword. However, the performances, Lindholm’s direction, and a horrifyingly bizarre story work well enough to offer a mild recommendation.

What did you think of The Good Nurse? Comment below.

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

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DVD & Streaming

The Good Nurse

Biography/History , Crime , Drama , Mystery/Suspense , Thriller

Content Caution

Jessica Chastain stars as Amy Loughren in The Good Nurse.

In Theaters

Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren; Eddie Redmayne as Charlie Cullen; Nnamdi Asomugha as Danny Baldwin; Noah Emmerich as Tim Braun; Marcia Jean Kurtz as Jackie; Alix West Lefler as Alex Loughren; Devyn McDowell as Maya Loughren; Judith Delgado as Ana Martinez; Jesus-Papoleto Melendez as Sam Martinez; Kim Dickens as Linda Garran; David Lavine as Duncan Beattie; Gabe Fazio as Tom Anderson; Anjelica Bosboom as Kelly Anderson; Maria Dizzia as Lori Lucas

Home Release Date

October 26, 2022
Tobias Lindholm

Distributor

Movie review.

Staying overnight at a hospital can be tough. It’s different from home; the room is filled with strange beeping gadgets; and, most likely, you’re in some sort of pain.

That’s why nurses like Amy Loughren are so wonderful.

Amy’s a trooper. The single mother works tirelessly throughout the night in order to make sure her patients get the best treatment possible. She’d give you an arm and a leg just to make you smile.

And as it turns out, she is giving a piece of herself away: her heart. She’s got cardiomyopathy: blood blisters on her heart that put her in dire need of a heart transplant.

The only problem is that, without insurance, those transplants cost a lot of money—and she’s four months away from being eligible for the hospital’s health insurance and medical leave. Were they to discover her condition before then, she’d surely be fired to save the hospital money. But with every patient she has to lift or perform CPR on, she’s closer and closer to having a stroke.

That’s when Charlie Cullen arrives. The two quickly become friends, and it isn’t long before he figures out what’s going on with Amy. He decides to assist Amy with her patients in order to keep her from overworking her heart.

“I can help you,” Charlie says. “Come on. You can do four months. You’re gonna be OK.”

But then one of Amy’s patients dies unexpectedly, and the two detectives assigned to investigate suspect foul play: Charlie’s at the center of their sights. With the hospital seeking to avoid liability, however, they’ll be hard pressed to find any incriminating evidence against him.

But surely , Amy thinks, there’s no way Charlie could be responsible for the patient’s death. He’s so good and nice and helpful . Besides, he wasn’t even working when the patient passed away. It couldn’t be Charlie! … could it?

Positive Elements

Though Amy is exhausted and having health problems, she maintains a positive attitude with her patients and with her children. Her cheerful bedside manner brings them joy despite their difficult circumstances (and her own).

And when Amy figures out who is killing patients at the hospital, she puts herself in potential danger in order to protect her children. Amy’s courage and strength stand in stark contrast to the rest of the people who work at her hospital who’d rather avoid potential liability by simply ignoring the issue. In contrast, when Amy is faced with the dilemma, she works with Detectives Braun and Baldwin figure out how to convict their suspect.

The two detectives work to solve the case before more people are harmed, and they genuinely want to protect other potential victims from harm. They’re rightly frustrated when others seem to be passive about the homicides and even impede their efforts to pursue justice.

Spiritual Elements

Sexual content.

A woman’s dead body is seen in a hospital bed, and her breasts are visible.

Violent Content

Charlie was previously arrested for trespassing and harassment. People die in the hospital. Hospital workers perform CPR and use a defibrillator on critical and dying patients. Patients are seen with various wounds.

Crude or Profane Language

The f-word is used 13 times, and the s-word is used 12 times. God’s name is misused 14 times, and Jesus’ name is inappropriately used once. “H—,” “jeez,” “crap” and “screwed” are all used once.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Various prescriptions drugs are used or referenced in the hospital. Additionally, patients are killed using drugs. Two women drink chardonnay. A nurse steals medicine.

Other Negative Elements

We see hospitals that would rather escape financial liability than admit errors or do the right thing. A suspect frantically yells and slams his hand into a table. A child yells at her mother.

In Dec. 2003, Charlie Cullen pleaded guilty for the murder of what was eventually confirmed to be at least 29 people—though experts estimate he may have killed as many as 400 people throughout his 16-year career as a nurse.

Charlie hopped from hospital to hospital, poisoning and killing patients for years before anyone began to suspect that he might be at the center of it. In The Good Nurse , we watch as fellow nurse Amy Loughren grows suspicious of him and helps police take him down.

The Good Nurse ’s R-rating primarily stems from two things: first, the profane language used within the film (about a dozen f- and s-words as well as misuses of God’s name). Second, there’s one scene in which a woman’s dead body is being cleaned, and we see the woman’s breasts.

Otherwise, this true-crime thriller doesn’t have a huge amount of onscreen content to deal with: patients die, but the scenes are more focused on the hospital staff attempting CPR on the dying victims. Perhaps the most disturbing part about the film is the reminder that it’s based on a true story.

Kennedy Unthank

Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”

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The good nurse review: great performances can't elevate stale crime drama [tiff].

The Good Nurse, adapted from the book by Charles Graeber, while deeply intriguing and occasionally haunting, lacks personality, intensity, and depth.

Pairing up Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne for a true-crime thriller sounds like it would make for a compelling watch, especially since The Good Nurse is based on a true story. Directed by Tobias Lindholm from a screenplay by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, The Good Nurse , adapted from the 2013 book by Charles Graeber, while deeply intriguing and occasionally haunting, lacks personality, intensity, and depth. It's a run-of-the-mill crime drama that doesn't stand out.

Amy Loughren (Chastain) is a nurse and mother who is trying to balance her work and personal life while also suffering from a medical issue that threatens to be fatal if she doesn’t rest. Enter Charles Cullen (Redmayne), a fellow nurse who is new at Amy’s hospital. The two quickly become friends, with Amy confiding in him about her medical condition and bringing him into her home to meet her two daughters (Devyn McDowell and Alix West Lefler). After a patient dies under suspicious circumstances, two detectives (Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich) are tasked with investigating what happened. As the clues start to point towards Charles, Amy finds herself caught between a friend and doing what’s right.

Related: Jessica Chastain Investigates Eddie Redmayne In The Good Nurse Trailer

There’s a fine line to walk when adapting a true story to the screen. While there are sure to be dramatizations and creative liberties taken to build tension or enhance certain aspects of the story, The Good Nurse is a true-crime thriller that feels stagnant in its approach. Chastain’s Amy Loughren, who is the real-life good nurse in the title, isn’t as developed as she could be. The film showcases Amy’s heart issues, but it’s more of a plot device to instigate Charles helping her than a full-fledged storyline that exists on its own. The tension between Amy and her eldest daughter is palpable, but The Good Nurse doesn’t seem interested in further exploring Amy’s life, how she manages work and parenting without much help, or how that affects her relationship with her daughters. Her friendship with Charles gets some attention, but it’s surface-level at best.

The film is good at revealing the insidious actions of not only Charlie, but the hospital systems in place that would keep him employed despite the fact that he murdered patients. The greed, corruption, and unethical actions of the healthcare industry — also highlighted by Amy’s lack of health insurance, which was promised to her only after she worked at the hospital for a year — is on full display. The Good Nurse doesn’t try to paint the healthcare world as anything but terrible, with nurses like Amy being the exception, a cog in a machine that works well in a money-hungry world. Amy puts her life on the line to do something good, to stop Charlie from killing any more people. Had the film explored more of their friendship, the nuance of having to turn on someone believed to be a friend would have been more powerful.

Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne are, of course, reliably good in a film that tries to be the same. Their performances elevate a thin script. What’s nice about Redmayne’s portrayal of Charlie is that he isn’t immediately sinister. His character might have killed multiple people in reality, but Redmayne’s performance is at times gentle, yet infused with a good amount of confusion. Even in moments when the audience might expect Charlie to attack — and there’s an especially tense scene between him and Amy that could have played out that way — Redmayne remains restrained and unassuming to the point that one might begin to question Charlie’s hand in the murders at all. Chastain conveys Amy’s tenderness, her need to believe people are good, as well as her heartbreak after learning of Charlie’s actions incredibly well. There is a lot going on in the film that wildly affects Amy emotionally and mentally from one scene to the next, and Chastain’s performance keeps her grounded.

The Good Nurse manages to avoid certain tropes of the true-crime genre, side-stepping all the grim intensity and brutal violence, the obvious “I’m a serial killer” looks, and any monologue or moments that would give Charlie too much sympathy. However, the film ultimately lacks the stamina and personality to keep audiences invested in what’s going on. The pacing is slow, the cinematography sterile, and the story lacking proper dimension to make any kind of impact.

The Good Nurse had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11. The film releases in limited theaters October 19 before streaming on Netflix October 26. It is 121 minutes long and is rated R for language.

The Good Nurse Review

26 Oct 2022

The Good Nurse

True crime has traditionally lent a veneer of respectability to some pretty sleazy film and TV. The logic seems to be that if something really happened, filmmakers can’t be blamed for wanting to dramatise it. Of course, how filmmakers go about presenting a narrative can vary wildly, meaning in practice that the true crime genre is home to everything from the most exploitative of sexy murder sagas to the most righteous and respectable of dramatisations. The Good Nurse falls into the second category.

Based on the notorious case of Charlie Cullen, an American nurse convicted of murdering 29 people and who may have been responsible for up to 400 deaths, Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ script is at least as interested in the failures of the multiple hospitals that neglected to report their suspicions about Cullen as it is in Cullen himself.

A finely calibrated portrait of tragic events which reserves the lion's share of its anger for systemic failures.

Eddie Redmayne does excellent work as Cullen, but Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren is the real lead. It’s an unusual role — in most films, the unwitting female friend of a serial killer is a minor character, a stooge who stands a good chance of meeting a sticky end herself — but here Chastain takes centre stage, blending vulnerability and guts to portray a woman who is neither total dupe nor all-powerful superhero.

Director Tobias Lindholm is perhaps better known as a writer (he wrote The Hunt and Another Round for Thomas Vinterberg ) but all that work scripting films preoccupied with culpability pays off handsomely here and sees him deliver a finely calibrated portrait of tragic events which reserves the lion’s share of its anger for systemic failures. This is a story that reminds us that disturbed individuals will always exist, but asks whether the real shame belongs to (or should at least be shared by) the societies and systems that enable them.

Movies | 07 09 2022

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – The Good Nurse (2022)

October 26, 2022 by Matt Rodgers

The Good Nurse , 2022.

Directed by Tobias Lindholm Starring Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne, Kim Dickens, Noah Emmerich, Nnamdi Asomugha, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Malik Yoba, Alix West Lefler and Gabe Fazio

Amy (Jessica Chastain), a compassionate nurse and single mother struggling with a life-threatening heart condition, finds solace in the friendship of a new member of staff, a thoughtful and empathetic fellow nurse (Eddie Redmayne). But after a series of mysterious patient deaths sets off an investigation that points to him as the prime suspect, Amy is forced to risk her life and the safety of her children to uncover the truth.

From the outside The Good Nurse looks like the kind of Netflix Limited Series that would probably get lost amongst the algorithm and hundreds of similar true-crime tales that fill up your home page. Put a stethoscope to it though and you’ll feel the drip-slow heartbeat of Tobias Lindholm’s riveting drama, all anchored by a creep show performance from Eddie Redmayne, and Jessica Chastain in peerless Zero Dark Nursie mode.

Stories of in-plain-sight criminal malpractice are scarily regular. In fact at the time of writing there is one such case dominating the headlines. The damning indictment at the dark heart of Tobias Lindholm’s account of Charles Cullen’s 16-year nursing career isn’t just in how he was able to get away with his crimes, but how the decision makers at the hospitals washed their hands of his quiet killing.

It’s just one element of a film that’s part scathing commentary on the American health-care system, part Sleeping with the Enemy -style thriller, part judgement on the way we treat our elderly, and part police-procedural, with the only real criticism being the inevitable imbalance in trying to juggle all of these threads.

Thankfully when you have an actress like Jessica Chastain to hang them on, The Good Nurse still manages to form a cohesive, utterly gripping whole. Much like the film, her performance is quiet, measured, but prone to moments of anxiety and panic. There are no histrionics from the academy-award winner, with her most moving moment being a simple scene in which she sits in a car and allows herself a small window of time in which to cry.

Her character is suffering from Cardiomyopathy, all with the added burden of no health insurance, and the day-to-day of being a round-the-clock nurse and single mom to rambunctious daughters. Chastain makes you believe the strain upon every sinew of her being, emotionally and financially, and so when Eddie Redmayne’s politely spoken, burden lifting nurse comes into her life, you completely understand why she’d welcome the beady-eyed stranger into her personal sphere.

As an audience we’re not as willing to accept this helpful new presence into her life, largely because we’ve seen things that Chastain is yet to, notably an introductory scene in which the camera lingers on Redmayne’s Cullen as a patient flatlines in front of him. It immediately sets the tone for his performance and the affect his subsequent appearances will have on the viewer, as he initially watches them die with what looks like a perverse voyeurism, the camera then tightens as his expression changes to one of remorse or disinterest.

Either way it’s bloody unsettling, and sets a precedent for the remainder of his reptilian turn. Often shrouded in shadows or emerging from them, at one stage he threatens to tip into Jupiter Ascending territory, but sensibly stays within the tone of the film, where it’s more about what isn’t said that’ll send chills up your spine.

Playing out in the background of this terrifyingly intimate murder-spree is the police investigation, headed up by the always watchable Noah Emmerich ( The Truman Show ) and his partner Nnamdi Asomugha ( Crown Heights ). It supplies as much tension and anger as the events they are investigating, with the duo stonewalled by the hospital lawyers anytime they get close to pointing the finger at Cullen.

When their paths eventually cross with Chastain’s nurse, it’s one of those triumphant “here we go” kind of movie moments, and although the focus shifts from the real-world topic of hospital negligence to a slow-burn catch-the-killer finale, the lack of resolution or condemnation for the institution is perhaps the larger point at play in The Good Nurse .

Don’t prescribe to the fact the label on the bottle marked The Good Nurse reads like one of those Sunday night television dramas you’ll never get around to watching. Elevated by powerful and understated performances from Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, this is a gripping and measured English-language debut from The Hunt ‘s Tobias Lindholm.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film ★ ★ ★ ★/ Movie ★ ★ ★ ★

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The Good Nurse Review

This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. Read our full disclaimer here . Our opinions are our own.

Additionally, we are proud to not use any AI within our content. Our content is 100% for nurses, by nurses .

In 2022, Netflix brought to life The Good Nurse , a film adaptation of the 2013 true-crime book of the same name.

Today we’re going to be reviewing the movie, talking about how realistic the scenes are, and going over what the true story actually is .

Before we get started, I just wanted to mention that we won’t be looking at specific plot points from a cinematic perspective. But, more from a nursing perspective .

Additionally, this is a bit different from our normal content, I wanted to try something a little different. But, if you have any concerns or comments, please feel free to contact us .

In the movie there’s a lot of focus on nurses. What do nurses do? Find out more about what hospital life is like!

The Good Nurse Movie Plot

Charles cullen tried to commit suicide, why did charles cullen kill his patients, what is the heart condition amy loughren has, insulin (human), what is the pyxis machine, hospital cover-up, movie realism, final thoughts.

The Good Nurse is a 2022 American film depicting events of the 1988-2003 serial killer Charles Cullen ( source ). It is taken from the 2013 true-crime book by the same name.

The story itself follows Amy Loughren, a nurse that works closely with Charles Cullen in a New Jersey ICU. She meets Charles and develops a strong friendship with him. Amy has a life-threatening heart condition ( cardiomyopathy ) that Charles helps her with. But, after a series of mysterious patient deaths, an investigation sets out to discover the truth.

Is The Good Nurse a True Story?

Did The Good Nurse movie actually happen? Yes, the movie is based on a true story.

Amy Loughren is a real person who worked with the police as an informant to help the police catch Charlie.

Charles Cullen is a real-life serial killer. He confessed to murdering up to forty patients, with 29 confirmed victims, and is estimated to be responsible for 400 deaths. Cullen was arrested on December 12, 2003 and sentenced to eleven consecutive life sentences in 2006 ( source ).

Charles Cullen had tried to commit suicide once prior to committing murders. Then, after he had committed several murders, he tried to commit suicide 3 more times. He had many stays in psyciatric facilities throughout his life.

Cullen stated that he was trying to spare his patients from being “coded” or being listed as a Code Blue. Coding patients can be brutal on the body due to chest compressions and other life-saving measures. He also stated that he was trying to end their suffering ( source ).

In the movie, Amy Loughren has a rare heart condition known as cardiomyopathy .

Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart that makes it difficult to pump blood to the body. It can cause complications such as heart failure. The symptoms are often seen in the movie as breathlessness, fatigue, and chest discomfort ( source ).

Medications in the Movie

There are several medications mentioned in the movie, however these specific ones are very important. We just wanted to go over some details of the medications, and what they’re actually used for.

Human insulin is used to control blood sugar in people who have diabetes type 1, or in people who have uncontrolled type 2. When given, Insulin helps a patient reduce blood sugar levels ( source ).

Cullen would inject Insulin into patient’s saline bags. These deadly doses would enter a patients bloodstream and could cause deadly decreases in blood sugar.

Digoxin is a medication used to treat heart failure and arrhythmias. It can help control your heart rate, and helps your heart pump better ( source ).

Cullen would use Digoxin in toxic doses to murder his patients “in their sleep”.

The Pyxis MedStation system is an automated medication dispensing system. It allows for decentralized medication management along with a complete record of who is accessing medications ( source ).

In the movie, you see the Pyxis machine used a lot. It is commonly used by nurses and other healthcare providers ( typically pharmacy ) to withdraw medications. Basically all medications are kept in the Pyxis, however certain medications such as Class II Fentanyl are kept under extremely strict watch.

Throughout the movie, it seems as if the hospital was trying to cover-up for what was happening ( the unexplained deaths/errors ).

In real life, hospitals do have very strong legal teams that deal with these types of matters. There can be a lot of legality behind what patients have rights to, ethical issues surrounding mistakes, and insurance problems. While hospitals are trying to look out for the patient’s best interests, there can be complex reasons why they might try and delay investigations.

Hospitals now require employees to report any mistakes or suspicious behavior with the promise of no-fault. Unfortunately, nurse and other medical professionals are human and mistakes can happen. These hospitals employ teams to ensure the safety of patients, staff, and the organization.

You can read more about the legal impacts of the case here .

How realistic is The Good Nurse movie?

Well, if you’ve seen the movie then you’ll know that it has a lot of hospital scenes. These hospital scenes, for the most part, are fairly accurate.

For example, the beginning scene with the Code Blue, it shows a fairly realistic scenario. The compressor was counting out loud, someone was giving breaths, the doctor was providing feedback, and there was a realistic conversation happening. Additionally, the medications ( epinephrine ) would be a medication used during a cardiac arrest.

From that perspective, it was a fairly accurate depiction. The rest of the movie seemed to follow the same trend. When the legal team was talking to the police, that is how a hospitals legal team would probably act. In addition, when they addressed the hospital about what was happening it seemed pretty on-par.

In conclusion, from a nurse’s perspective, it’s a pretty good movie. Again, it relatively accurately depicts a hospital setting, and the events that happened.

It’s a sad tale that reminds us, as nurses, we have a responsibility to provide ethical, proper, and just patient care.

This article should not be taken as professional advice of any kind. While we try to use accurate and up-to-date information we cannot guarantee the information will be accurate as of the time you look at it. Information and practices are always changing.

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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The British military recruits a small group of highly skilled soldiers to strike against German forces behind enemy lines during World War II. The British military recruits a small group of highly skilled soldiers to strike against German forces behind enemy lines during World War II. The British military recruits a small group of highly skilled soldiers to strike against German forces behind enemy lines during World War II.

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‘Civil War’ Review: We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us. Again.

In Alex Garland’s tough new movie, a group of journalists led by Kirsten Dunst, as a photographer, travels a United States at war with itself.

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‘Civil War’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The writer and director alex garland narrates a sequence from his film..

“My name is Alex Garland and I’m the writer director of ‘Civil War’. So this particular clip is roughly around the halfway point of the movie and it’s these four journalists and they’re trying to get, in a very circuitous route, from New York to DC, and encountering various obstacles on the way. And this is one of those obstacles. What they find themselves stuck in is a battle between two snipers. And they are close to one of the snipers and the other sniper is somewhere unseen, but presumably in a large house that sits over a field and a hill. It’s a surrealist exchange and it’s surrounded by some very surrealist imagery, which is they’re, in broad daylight in broad sunshine, there’s no indication that we’re anywhere near winter in the filming. In fact, you can kind of tell it’s summer. But they’re surrounded by Christmas decorations. And in some ways, the Christmas decorations speak of a country, which is in disrepair, however silly it sounds. If you haven’t put away your Christmas decorations, clearly something isn’t going right.” “What’s going on?” “Someone in that house, they’re stuck. We’re stuck.” “And there’s a bit of imagery. It felt like it hit the right note. But the interesting thing about that imagery was that it was not production designed. We didn’t create it. We actually literally found it. We were driving along and we saw all of these Christmas decorations, basically exactly as they are in the film. They were about 100 yards away, just piled up by the side of the road. And it turned out, it was a guy who’d put on a winter wonderland festival. People had not dug his winter wonderland festival, and he’d gone bankrupt. And he had decided just to leave everything just strewn around on a farmer’s field, who was then absolutely furious. So in a way, there’s a loose parallel, which is the same implication that exists within the film exists within real life.” “You don’t understand a word I say. Yo. What’s over there in that house?” “Someone shooting.” “It’s to do with the fact that when things get extreme, the reasons why things got extreme no longer become relevant and the knife edge of the problem is all that really remains relevant. So it doesn’t actually matter, as it were, in this context, what side they’re fighting for or what the other person’s fighting for. It’s just reduced to a survival.”

By Manohla Dargis

A blunt, gut-twisting work of speculative fiction, “Civil War” opens with the United States at war with itself — literally, not just rhetorically. In Washington, D.C., the president is holed up in the White House; in a spookily depopulated New York, desperate people wait for water rations. It’s the near-future, and rooftop snipers, suicide bombers and wild-eyed randos are in the fight while an opposition faction with a two-star flag called the Western Forces, comprising Texas and California — as I said, this is speculative fiction — is leading the charge against what remains of the federal government. If you’re feeling triggered, you aren’t alone.

It’s mourning again in America, and it’s mesmerizingly, horribly gripping. Filled with bullets, consuming fires and terrific actors like Kirsten Dunst running for cover, the movie is a what-if nightmare stoked by memories of Jan. 6. As in what if the visions of some rioters had been realized, what if the nation was again broken by Civil War, what if the democratic experiment called America had come undone? If that sounds harrowing, you’re right. It’s one thing when a movie taps into childish fears with monsters under the bed; you’re eager to see what happens because you know how it will end (until the sequel). Adult fears are another matter.

In “Civil War,” the British filmmaker Alex Garland explores the unbearable if not the unthinkable, something he likes to do. A pop cultural savant, he made a splashy zeitgeist-ready debut with his 1996 best seller “The Beach,” a novel about a paradise that proves deadly, an evergreen metaphor for life and the basis for a silly film . That things in the world are not what they seem, and are often far worse, is a theme that Garland has continued pursuing in other dark fantasies, first as a screenwriter (“ 28 Days Later ”), and then as a writer-director (“ Ex Machina ”). His résumé is populated with zombies, clones and aliens, though reliably it is his outwardly ordinary characters you need to keep a closer watch on.

By the time “Civil War” opens, the fight has been raging for an undisclosed period yet long enough to have hollowed out cities and people’s faces alike. It’s unclear as to why the war started or who fired the first shot. Garland does scatter some hints; in one ugly scene, a militia type played by a jolting, scarily effective Jesse Plemons asks captives “what kind of American” they are. Yet whatever divisions preceded the conflict are left to your imagination, at least partly because Garland assumes you’ve been paying attention to recent events. Instead, he presents an outwardly and largely post-ideological landscape in which debates over policies, politics and American exceptionalism have been rendered moot by war.

‘Civil War’ Is Designed to Disturb You

A woman with a bulletproof vest that says “Press” stands in a smoky city street.

One thing that remains familiar amid these ruins is the movie’s old-fashioned faith in journalism. Dunst, who’s sensational, plays Lee, a war photographer who works for Reuters alongside her friend, a reporter, Joel (the charismatic Wagner Moura). They’re in New York when you meet them, milling through a crowd anxiously waiting for water rations next to a protected tanker. It’s a fraught scene; the restless crowd is edging into mob panic, and Lee, camera in hand, is on high alert. As Garland’s own camera and Joel skitter about, Lee carves a path through the chaos, as if she knows exactly where she needs to be — and then a bomb goes off. By the time it does, an aspiring photojournalist, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), is also in the mix.

The streamlined, insistently intimate story takes shape once Lee, Joel, Jessie and a veteran reporter, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), pile into a van and head to Washington. Joel and Lee are hoping to interview the president (Nick Offerman), and Sammy and Jessie are riding along largely so that Garland can make the trip more interesting. Sammy serves as a stabilizing force (Henderson fills the van with humanizing warmth), while Jessie plays the eager upstart Lee takes under her resentful wing. It’s a tidily balanced sampling that the actors, with Garland’s banter and via some cozy downtime, turn into flesh-and-blood personalities, people whose vulnerability feeds the escalating tension with each mile.

As the miles and hours pass, Garland adds diversions and hurdles, including a pair of playful colleagues, Tony and Bohai (Nelson Lee and Evan Lai), and some spooky dudes guarding a gas station. Garland shrewdly exploits the tense emptiness of the land, turning strangers into potential threats and pretty country roads into ominously ambiguous byways. Smartly, he also recurrently focuses on Lee’s face, a heartbreakingly hard mask that Dunst lets slip brilliantly. As the journey continues, Garland further sketches in the bigger picture — the dollar is near-worthless, the F.B.I. is gone — but for the most part, he focuses on his travelers and the engulfing violence, the smoke and the tracer fire that they often don’t notice until they do.

Despite some much-needed lulls (for you, for the narrative rhythm), “Civil War” is unremittingly brutal or at least it feels that way. Many contemporary thrillers are far more overtly gruesome than this one, partly because violence is one way unimaginative directors can put a distinctive spin on otherwise interchangeable material: Cue the artful fountains of arterial spray. Part of what makes the carnage here feel incessant and palpably realistic is that Garland, whose visual approach is generally unfussy, doesn’t embellish the violence, turning it into an ornament of his virtuosity. Instead, the violence is direct, at times shockingly casual and unsettling, so much so that its unpleasantness almost comes as a surprise.

If the violence feels more intense than in a typical genre shoot ’em up, it’s also because, I think, with “Civil War,” Garland has made the movie that’s long been workshopped in American political discourse and in mass culture, and which entered wider circulation on Jan. 6. The raw power of Garland’s vision unquestionably owes much to the vivid scenes that beamed across the world that day when rioters, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “ MAGA civil war ,” swarmed the Capitol. Even so, watching this movie, I also flashed on other times in which Americans have relitigated the Civil War directly and not, on the screen and in the streets.

Movies have played a role in that relitigation for more than a century, at times grotesquely. Two of the most famous films in history — D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic “The Birth of a Nation” (which became a Ku Klux Klan recruitment tool) and the romantic 1939 melodrama “Gone With the Wind” — are monuments to white supremacy and the myth of the Southern Lost Cause. Both were critical and popular hits. In the decades since, filmmakers have returned to the Civil War era to tell other stories in films like “Glory,” “Lincoln” and “Django Unchained” that in addressing the American past inevitably engage with its present.

There are no lofty or reassuring speeches in “Civil War,” and the movie doesn’t speak to the better angels of our nature the way so many films try to. Hollywood’s longstanding, deeply American imperative for happy endings maintains an iron grip on movies, even in ostensibly independent productions. There’s no such possibility for that in “Civil War.” The very premise of Garland’s movie means that — no matter what happens when or if Lee and the rest reach Washington — a happy ending is impossible, which makes this very tough going. Rarely have I seen a movie that made me so acutely uncomfortable or watched an actor’s face that, like Dunst’s, expressed a nation’s soul-sickness so vividly that it felt like an X-ray.

Civil War Rated R for war violence and mass death. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. In theaters.

An earlier version of this review misidentified an organization in the Civil War in the movie. It is the Western Forces, not the Western Front.

How we handle corrections

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic for The Times. More about Manohla Dargis

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Fallout First Reviews: A 'Violent, Fun, Emotional, Epic' Video Game Adaptation, Critics Say

Critics say prime video's new series benefits from strong storytelling, committed performances, and a deft balance of tone, making it one of the best video game adaptations ever..

TAGGED AS: First Reviews , streaming , television , TV

Fallout is the latest video game adaptation to hit the small screen. Created by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner , and executive produced by Westworld ‘s Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy , the eight episode series, inspired by the hit game franchise from Bethesda Softworks drops on Wednesday, April 10 to Amazon Prime Video.

The post-apocalyptic series stars Ella Purnell as Lucy; Aaron Moten as Maximus; and Walton Goggins as The Ghoul. Joining them is an ensemble cast that includes Kyle MacLachlan , Sarita Choudhury , Michael Emerson , Leslie Uggams , Zach Cherry , Moises Arias and Johnny Pemberton , among others.

With nearly three decades of lore under its belt, the video game franchise has drawn a massive fanbase. Needless to say, there’s a lot of hype surrounding the new series. Does it live up to expectations? Here’s what critics are saying about Fallout :

How does it compare to the video games?

Prime Video’s TV adaptation of Fallout does something the games in the legendary franchise never have—put storytelling above all else. — Bernard Boo, Den of Geek

Fallout is the new standard for video game adaptations. This series is violent, fun, emotional, epic, and just plain awesome. — Alex Maidy, JoBlo’s Movie Network

Opting for a new narrative that simply takes place in the Fallout world, the series is a mix of adventure and puzzle-box mystery, with more than enough action scenes to satisfy the RPG faithful. It’s fun, and only occasionally overcomplicated. — Kelly Lawler, USA Today

Fallout takes the ideas of the games and crafts its own story in an already interesting world. Nails the satire, the wackiness, and about everything a fan could want. — Zach Pope, Zach Pope Reviews

Bodies fly, heads explode, and video game logic reigns triumphant. — Niv M. Sultan, Slant Magazine

How is the cast?

(Photo by Prime Video)

All of the performances are great; Purnell is a strong, loveably naive lead, while Moten delivers a fascinatingly, sort-of loathsome turn. Excusing the wonderful pooch that plays CX404, aka Four, Goggins is the runaway MVP, an agent of chilly, smooth-talking chaos somewhere between John Marston and Clarence Boddicker. — Cameron Frew, Dexerto

“I hate it up here,” Lucy mutters early on, and given the horrors to which she’s subjected, nobody could blame her. Yet her quest not only involves no shortage of carnage but also insights into her community and its origins, as well as encounters (some relatively brief) with a strong array of co-stars, including Moisés Arias, Kyle MacLachlan, Sarita Choudhury, Michael Emerson, and Leslie Uggams. — Brian Lowry, CNN

The Ghoul serves as the perfect foil for Lucy and Maximus, with Goggins deploying megatons’ worth of weary charisma in his performance as Fallout’ s resident lone wolf, black hat archetype. — Belen Edwards, Mashable

Emancipation’s Aaron Moten and And Just Like That… standout Sarita Choudhury nail the determined, world-weary drive that propels their characters forward while Justified’ s Walton Goggins gives one of his best performances yet as Cooper Howard, a mutated ghoul of a gunslinger who gives everyone a hard time with biting quips and searing bullet work. — David Opie, Digital Spy

How’s the writing and world-building?

The show’s creators have done such an impeccable job fleshing out the world of Fallout that it feels like the characters are treading stories and quests you’ve experienced yourself in one way or another. — Tanner Dedmon, ComicBook.com

Story-wise, Fallout smartly eschews trying to adapt specific storylines or side-quests from any of the games, but rather concocts a new one set in the rich and familiar landscape. — Brian Lloyd, entertainment.ie

There are plenty of Easter eggs, as you might expect from a video game adaptation, but Fallout manages to make them seem like part of the world, too. It all feels real and believable as pieces of a whole existence that these people have scraped together, which goes a long way toward helping the show’s humor land. Even the Easter eggs feel carefully designed to fit into the world and the lives of the characters, rather than drawing focus away from them or sticking out as a glaring distraction. — Austen Goslin, Polygon

Do the violence and humor work?

It’s strong, it’s goddamn hilarious, and it highlights exactly how to swing for the fences while still knowing where Homebase is. It may be a new series, but Fallout is an instant classic of the streaming age. — Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho? A Geek Community

A bright and funny apocalypse filled with dark punchlines and bursts of ultra-violence, Fallout is among the best video game adaptations ever made. — Matt Purslow, IGN Movies

Finding a tonal balance between the drama and the comedy is a razor’s edge, but Fallout makes it look effortless. As a result, spending time in this hardened world is as fun, engaging, and engrossing as the games. — William Goodman, TheWrap

It’s an equal parts funny and nightmarish show that, like its protagonist, isn’t content to live inside a projection of the past. — Kambole Campbell, Empire Magazine

Crucially, these laugh-out-loud moments of disbelief don’t detract from the harsh reality of this world, which is perhaps even more violent than you might expect, especially for newbies to this franchise. — David Opie, Digital Spy

Any final thoughts?

Fallout is a clever, twisted apocalyptic odyssey that soars as both a video game adaptation and a standalone series. — Lauren Coates, The Spool

For those who have never played the Fallout series, especially those of the time-strapped ilk who can’t just pour hundreds of hours into a game, they should give Prime Video’s Fallout a go. — Howard Waldstein, CBR

Fallout is both totally rad and an absolute blast. — Neil Armstrong, BBC.com

The show’s clearly committed to being the definitive Fallout adaptation, a love letter to fans, no question, while still opening the vault door to welcome in just about everyone else brave enough to step inside. — Jon Negroni, TV Line

There’s really nothing like Fallout on television right now, and that’s ultimately a good thing. — Therese Lacson, Collider

Thumbnail image by Amazon Studios. On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News .

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'Civil War' review: Kirsten Dunst leads visceral look at consequences of a divided America

We see “Civil War” trending on social media all too commonly in our divided country, for one reason or another, and usually nodding to extreme cultural or ideological differences. With his riveting new action thriller of the same name, writer/director Alex Garland delivers a riveting cautionary tale that forces viewers to confront its terrifying real-life consequences.

“Civil War” (★★★½ out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) imagines a near-future America that’s dystopian in vision but still realistic enough to be eerily unnerving. It's a grounded, well-acted ode to the power of journalism and a thought-provoking, visceral fireball of an anti-war movie.

Played exceptionally by Kirsten Dunst , Lee is an acclaimed war photographer covering a fractured America: The Western Forces led by California and Texas have seceded from the USA and are days away from a final siege on the federal government. Lee and her reporting partner Joel (Wagner Moura) have been tasked with traveling from New York City to Washington to interview the president (Nick Offerman) before the White House falls.

After visually capturing humanity's worst moments, Lee is as world-weary and jaded as one can be. But after saving aspiring photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) during a Brooklyn suicide bombing, Lee becomes a reluctant mentor as the young woman worms her way into their crew. Also in the press van: senior journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), hitching a ride to the Western Forces military base in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Most of “Civil War” is an episodic odyssey where Lee and company view the mighty toll taken by this conflict: the graveyard of cars on what’s left of I-95, for example, or how an innocent-looking holiday stop turns deadly courtesy of an unseen shooter. Primarily, however, it’s a disturbing internal examination of what happens when we turn on each other, when weekend warriors take up arms against trained soldiers, or armed neighbors are given a way to do bad things to people they just don’t like.

'No dark dialogue!': Kirsten Dunst says 5-year-old son helped her run lines for 'Civil War'

Given its polarizing nature, “Civil War" is actually not that "political." Garland doesn’t explain what led to the secession or much of the historical backstory, and even Offerman’s president isn’t onscreen enough to dig into any real-life inspirations, outside of some faux bluster in the face of certain defeat. (He’s apparently in his third term and dismantled the FBI, so probably not a big Constitutionalist.)

Rather than two hours of pointing fingers, Garland is more interested in depicting the effect of a civil war rather than the cause. As one sniper points out in a moment when Lee and Joel are trying not to die, when someone’s shooting a gun at you, it doesn’t matter what side you’re on or who’s good and who's bad.

The director’s intellectual filmography has explored everything from ecological issues ( “Annihilation” ) to AI advancement ( “Ex Machina” ), and there are all sorts of heady themes at play in “Civil War.” “What kind of American are you?” asks a racist soldier played with a steady, ruthless cruelty by Jesse Plemons (Dunst's husband) in a disturbing scene that nods to an even deeper conflict in society than the one torching this fictionalized version. There's also an underlying sense of apathy that the characters face, with hints that much of the country is just willfully ignoring the conflict because they'd rather not think about it. But this hellish road trip also maintains a sense of hopefulness − via the growing relationship between Lee and Jessie – and is pretty exciting even with its multitude of horrors.

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“Civil War” is a thoughtful movie with blockbuster ambitions, and while it does embrace more of a straightforward action flick vibe toward its climactic end, Garland still lands a lasting gut punch. He immerses audiences in the unpredictable nature of war, with gunfire and explosions leaving even the calmest sort on edge, and paints a sprawling canvas of an America forever changed. Thankfully, it’s just a warning and not a promise, using the movie theater as a public service announcement rather than an escape from the real world.

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Movie Review: In Alex Garland’s potent ‘Civil War,’ journalists are America’s last hope

This image released by A24 shows Kirsten Dunst in a scene from “Civil War.” (A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Kirsten Dunst in a scene from “Civil War.” (Murray Close/A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows a scene from “Civil War.” (A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows a scene from “Civil War.” (Murray Close/A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Cailee Spaeny, left, and Kirsten Dunst in a scene from “Civil War.” (A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Wagner Moura in a scene from “Civil War.” (A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Wagner Moura, left, and Kirsten Dunst in a scene from “Civil War.” (Murray Close/A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Cailee Spaeny, left, and Wagner Moura in a scene from “Civil War.” (Murray Close/A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Cailee Spaeny in a scene from “Civil War.” (Murray Close/A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Nick Offerman in a scene from “Civil War.” (Murray Close/A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Stephen McKinley Henderson in a scene from “Civil War.” (Murray Close/A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows promotional art for “Civil War.” (A24 via AP)

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The United States is crumbling in Alex Garland’s sharp new film “ Civil War, ” a bellowing and haunting big screen experience. The country has been at war with itself for years by the time we’re invited in, through the gaze of a few journalists documenting the chaos on the front lines and chasing an impossible interview with the president.

Garland, the writer-director of films like “Annihilation” and “Ex Machina,” as well as the series “Devs,” always seems to have an eye on the ugliest sides of humanity and our capacity for self-destruction. His themes are profound and his exploration of them sincere in films that are imbued with strange and haunting images that rattle around in your subconscious for far too long. Whatever you think of “ Men ,” his most divisive film to date, it’s unlikely anyone will forget Rory Kinnear giving birth to himself.

In “Civil War,” starring Kirsten Dunst as a veteran war photographer named Lee, Garland is challenging his audience once again by not making the film about what everyone thinks it will, or should, be about. Yes, it’s a politically divided country. Yes, the President (Nick Offerman) is a blustery, rising despot who has given himself a third term, taken to attacking his citizens and shut himself off from the press. Yes, there is one terrifying character played by Jesse Plemons who has some pretty hard lines about who is and isn’t a real American.

FILE - Jeff Skoll arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" at the Arclight Hollywood, July 25, 2017, in Los Angeles. Participant, the activist film and television studio that has financed Oscar winners like “Spotlight” and socially conscious documentaries like “Food, Inc,” and “Waiting For Superman” is closing its doors after 20 years. Billionaire Skoll told his staff of 100 in a memo shared with The Associated Press on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, that they were winding down company operations. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)

But that trailer that had everyone talking is not the story. Garland is not so dull or narratively conservative to make the film about red and blue ideologies. All we really know is that the so-called Western Forces of Texas and California have seceded from the country and are closing in to overthrow the government. We don’t know what they want or why, or what the other side wants or why and you start to realize that many of the characters don’t seem to really know, or care, either.

This choice might be frustrating to some audiences, but it’s also the only one that makes sense in a film focused on the kinds of journalists who put themselves in harm’s way to tell the story of violent conflicts and unrest. As Lee explains to Cailee Spaeny’s Jessie, a young, aspiring photographer who has elbowed her way onto their dangerous journey to Washington, questions are not for her to ask: She takes truthful, impartial pictures so that everyone else can.

“Civil War” a film that is more about war reporters than anything else — the trauma of the beat, the vital importance of bearing witness and the moral and ethical dilemmas of impartiality. Dunst’s Lee is having a bit of an existential crisis, having shot so many horrors and feeling as though she hasn’t made any difference — violence and death are still everywhere. She’s also a pro: Hardened and committed to the story and the image. Her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) is more of an adrenaline junkie, chasing the gunfire and drinking himself into a stupor every night. There’s Jessie (Spaeny), the wide-eyed but ambitious newbie who is in over her head, and the aging editor Sammy (the great Stephen McKinley Henderson), wise and buttoned up in Brooks Brothers and suspenders, who can’t imagine a life outside of news even as his body is failing him. All are self-motivated and none of them have a life outside of the job, which might be a criticism for some movie characters but not here (trigger warning for any journo audiences out there).

The group must drive an indirect route to get from New York to Washington as safely as possible, through Pittsburgh and West Virginia. The roads and towns are set-dressed a little bit, but anyone who knows the area will recognize familiar sights of dead malls, creaky off-brand gas stations on two lane roads, boarded up shops and overgrown parking lots that all work to provide an unsettlingly effective backdrop for the bleak world of “Civil War.”

Dunst and Spaeny are both exceedingly good in their roles, effectively embodying the veteran and the novice — a well-written, nuanced and evolving dynamic that should inspire post-credits debates and discussion (among other topics).

Dread permeates every frame, whether it’s a quiet moment of smart conversation, a white-knuckle standoff or a deafening shootout on 17th street. And as with all Garland films it comes with a great, thoughtful soundtrack and a Sonoya Mizuno cameo.

Smart, compelling and challenging blockbusters don’t come along that often, though this past year has had a relative embarrassment of riches with the likes of “Dune: Part Two” and “Oppenheimer.” “Civil War” should be part of that conversation too. It’s a full body theatrical experience that deserves a chance.

“Civil War,” an A24 release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “strong, violent content, bloody/disturbing images and language throughout.” Running time: 119 minutes. Three stars out of four.

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NBCUniversal chief content officer Donna Langley was there. So was Sony head Tom Rothman. Bob Iger was one of the few Hollywood heavyweights who couldn’t make it, but at least he had a good excuse, still in the midst of a vicious proxy battle with investor Nelson Peltz.

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