‘The Good Nurse’ First Look: Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne in the True-Crime Thriller

The Good Nurse centres on a nurse who murdered dozens, if not hundreds, of patients. And guess what? Netflix has released the first official photos for The Good Nurse, an upcoming film adaptation of Charles Graeber’s true crime novel. The movie premiers this fall and stars Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne in lead roles. Read on to know all about it.

A Taut Thriller On 2013 Crime Novel…

The Good Nurse is based on Charles Graeber’s 2013 book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder, the taut thriller, by Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm. The film is set to release by Netflix in the fall and explores the heroic lengths that Loughhren went to help catch Cullen.

Now if you don’t know about the book, The Good Nurse centres on a nurse,  Charles Cullen who murdered dozens, if not hundreds, of patients. The true-crime drama stars Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren and Eddie Redmayne as Charles Cullen.  Tobias Lindholm revealed that:  “When I read the book, I realized that it wasn’t just another serial-killer movie. It was a portrayal of a system that didn’t stop the serial killer and the nurse who did.”

Chastain, who isn’t a big fan of true crime, said in an interview that she saw it as an opportunity to tell a different story —not just about the serial killer, but the nurse who helped authorities finally catch him. She said: “I wanted to acknowledge someone like Amy. She’s the kind of superhero that I want to celebrate because they’re everywhere.”

What’s The Plot?

Lindholm, who wrote and directed the 2015 Oscar-nominated drama A War, had originally signed on to direct in 2016, but then stepped away to shoot The Investigation, a six-part miniseries about the death of Swedish journalist Kim Wall.

However, Chastain and Redmayne, who already had busy schedules were willing to wait. Chastain previously spoke about Lindholm, “You see it with his series The Investigation, the way he handles these stories—it’s with the utmost dignity and decency for everyone involved.”

The commanding performances by the Oscar winners make the film even more interesting, as the two weave together a story that explores how the American healthcare system and hospital administration overlooked Cullen’s move from hospital to hospital, even though there were red flags everywhere.

Over his 16-year career as a nurse, Cullen worked at nine hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, killing patients by administering lethal doses of insulin and other drugs. “From an actor’s point of view, [it was about] trying to interrogate why—why this person did what he did, with the acknowledgement that you were never going to find that answer,” says Eddie Redmayne. “But the interrogation of it was pretty intriguing.” 

On the other hand, Chastain has worked really hard for her character as Loughren who plays a single mom, working night shifts at the hospital to feed her two children. In the movie, she suffers from a deadly heart condition which requires immediate treatment.

However, she continues to work for several months to fetch her health insurance.