Movie review

The Good Nurse flatlines as a great serial killer movie despite Oscar-winning stars

It could be argued that American audiences and content makers have an uncomfortable obsession with serial killers. That fixation has only grown through the years with the proliferation of true crime podcasts and streaming shows, each of which has returned to mass murderers repeatedly. A relatively recent killer with an unusual method is showcased in the new Netflix film, The Good Nurse.

But anyone expected a dark and gritty film may be disappointed, as the film shifts focus from the killer, Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne), to one of his co-workers, Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain). A nurse at Parkfield Memorial Hospital in New Jersey in 2003, she becomes quick friends with Charlie after he starts there as a night nurse.

Their bond, one which becomes tighter after Charlie helps hide the fact that Amy has a debilitating heart condition, keeps her from understanding that Charlie is killing patients, poisoning them by injecting insulin into random IV bags in the hospital’s storage room. It’s only when an internal hospital investigation triggers a police inquiry led by detectives Tim Braun (Noah Emmerich) and Danny Baldwin (Nnamdi Asomugha) that Amy starts to have her doubts.

Directed by Tobias Lindholm and written by Kristy Wilson-Cairns, the film is well done, but never achieves the gravitas that would transform it into something great. Part of this is because the filmmakers never show Charlie as having any outward signs of being evil. He has a bland niceness about him that conceals his lurid impulses; that’s an effective way of showing that you can never know what’s happening in another person’s mind, but an ineffective way of building drama in a film.

The telegraphed nature of Amy and Charlie’s friendship takes on the feel of a slightly higher-class Lifetime movie, one that doesn’t quite fit the expectations brought by two Oscar winners in the lead roles. What ends up being more compelling is the hospital administrators, led by Linda Garran (Kim Dickens), covering up Charlie’s crimes for unknown reasons, and the doggedness of the two detectives trying to discover what exactly is happening.

On another note that’s admittedly a minor quibble, the film’s title does the story no favors. Using The Good… as the start of a title is a vastly overused crutch. Recent examples on both TV and in movies have included The Good Doctor, The Good Fight, The Good Wife, The Good Place, The Good Boss, and The Good House. Sometimes a film can overcome the plainness of such a title, but The Good Nurse is hampered by it.

Chastain and Redmayne each give respectable performances, but they’re nowhere near the award-worthy ones they’ve put on in the past. The most notable actor in the film winds up being Asomugha, a former NFL player who’s been inching into the entertainment industry over the past decade. He’s flat-out great in this role and could use it as a springboard to bigger and better parts.

The Good Nurse has its fair share of interesting moments and accomplished actors to bring them to life, but it falls short of being a must-watch. It’s a serial killer movie that mostly omits the killing, taking most of its reason for being with it.

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The Good Nurse is now streaming on Netflix.

Photo by JoJo Whilden / Netflix

Noah Emmerich, Nnamdi Asomugha, and Jessica Chastain in The Good Nurse

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hoop it up

Houston festival hosts dramatic reading of basketball-inspired TV show

Photo by Trent Wittenbach

Hoopzdreams tells the story of a gifted, multiracial athelete.

This year’s Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF), which starts this Thursday, November 6, offers plenty of film screenings – both feature-length films and shorts – as well as panel discussions, Q&As, workshops, etc. But the fest will also have a staged reading of the TV pilot Hoopztown, this Saturday at 2 pm at Six Foot Studios.

Hoopztown centers around Maya Hernandez, a gifted, multiracial athlete on track to be considered for the inaugural WNBA in 1996. She moves back to her hometown of Houston, where it’s revealed that her mother, a janitor at Houston Medical Center, is diagnosed with cancer.

The project is created and written by Fleurette S. Fernando, an educator, director, choreographer, arts administrator, and founding director of the M.A. in Arts Leadership Program at University of Houston, where she serves as an associate professor. “I wrote this story for the women in my life; my mother, my sisters, my teachers, my colleagues, my girlfriends, my students and particularly for my daughter,” says Fernando. “Her journey as a student athlete and the relationships she built with the girls on her various teams through the turbulent and magical years of her youth was an inspiration.”

hoopztown Fleurette S. Fernando Elizabeth Sosa Bailey Collaborators Elizabeth Sosa Bailey and Fleurette S. Fernando.Courtesy of Elizabeth Sosa Bailey

Hoopztown has gone through multiple iterations. During the 2015 ATX TV Festival Pitch Competition, Fernando was a finalist for her concept of the project. From there, the pilot (originally titled Hoopz) and loglines for a 10-episode run were put into motion. That first episode, titled “Rebound,” focuses on Maya’s first day at her new job, coaching a girls’ basketball team at a racially and socioeconomically diverse high school.

“Hoopztown is an ode to a woman’s journey through the lens of many races, ages and circumstances,” she says. “It’s a tribute to the underdog and a homage to a woman’s perilous path through a man’s world. Nowhere is this struggle more acutely demonstrated, mentally, emotionally, physically and economically, than in the arena of competitive sports in America.”

Since Fernando and her creative partner, Elizabeth Sosa Bailey, are both active members of

the Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) board, they knew they had to do a reading during this year’s fest.

“There is so much of myself that I see in this story, as someone who left a career to return home when my father was diagnosed with cancer and as a mixed race Latina understanding the duality of identity,” says Sosa Bailey. “Even the high school that Hoopztown is set in is much like my own. I attended Lamar High School, making me about a decade younger than the characters in the story. There are all of these wonderful little coincidences in Hoopztown.”

The project is a beneficiary of its second Houston Arts Alliance grant made possible through the

City of Houston Mayors Office of Cultural Affairs (MOCA). The reading cast includes over 20 actors, with Eva Marie Thomas playing the main role. Open to the public with a Pay What You Can ticket structure, the event invites the audience to experience the first run-through of what is slated to be the first episode, filmed in Houston using local cast and crew. The audience can also provide feedback and contribute to the project’s fundraising initiative to get to the next stage of filming.

For tickets, go to the Houston Cinema Arts Festival website.

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