“The Good Nurse” is a Potboiler with Two Involving Performances

Now playing on Netflix

There’s a film history of deadly horrors in hospitals, where scalpels to the neck and syringes to the temple are among the go-to medical murder weapons, but a real-life sick bay slayer committed crimes with a much more understated approach. An engrossing drama with hints of a suspense thriller, Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse (B) is wonderfully acted by Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne as two professional caregivers embroiled in a crime scene. Chastain plays an overworked single mom who is working the ward round the clock and counting down to her one-year mark of employment to qualify for health insurance to beat a secret pesky heart palpitation issue, a convenient plot point for a character primed for stressful sequences. She’s marvelous and relatable in the protagonist role. Redmayne is wonderful too as an often endearing character who clearly harbors issues under the surface. His simmering cauldron of an acting approach is a deft balance and consistently absorbing to watch. Nnamdi Asomugha and Kim Dickens are additional standouts in the ensemble as a police investigator and risk manager, respectively, demonstrating the frustrating boxes of the corporate medicine machine when patient care goes wrong. The film’s formula feels familiar, but Lindholm elevates the proceedings with creepy true-life conventions and by orchestrating high pedigree acting. His film is highly watchable as his primary characters get in your bloodstream.

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