'The Good Nurse' review: Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne's film is a creepy slow-burn

There is a sense of stillness throughout 'The Good Nurse'. Just like hospital corridors are devoid of any emotions and life, where medical practitioners work tireless for unending, where sickness and disease hang heavy in the air, and where there is a sense of gloom lingering at every corner, 'The Good Nurse' too gives the audience the same feeling.

Directed by Tobias Lindholm, the film is based on serial killer Charles Cullen who during his stint as a male nurse in over 9 hospitals, killed at least 29 people. Medical experts though feel the number could go up to 400. In Lindholm's film, Cullen is played by Eddie Redmayne who befriends Amy (Jessica Chastain) at his new job in a hospital in New Jersey. Amy is a hardworking single mother, who works late nights and has recently discovered she has a heart condition that can be fatal if not operated on. She doesn't have medical insurance which the hospital will only grant to her once she completes a year of working. Amy and Charlie become friends, often covering each other's shifts and tending to each other's patients. Knowing her heart condition, Charlie also helps Amy at home and almost becomes a proxy parent to her two daughters in a span of a few months.

When an elderly woman both Amy and Charlie had tended to, dies in mysterious circumstances, the hospital conducts an internal inquiry and eventually informs the state police as a protocol, seven weeks after the incident. Things initially don't appear complicated or suspicious for Amy but when the two investigating officers (Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich) make her study the final reports of the deceased she realises that the death has been caused due to double dose of insulin in the body.

The officers are suspicious of Cullen as he has a history of trespassing but none of his previous employers are ready to speak to them about the man. How Amy helps in cracking the case by risking her job and friendship forms the rest of the story.