THE GOOD NURSE*****

THE GOOD NURSE is a quietly brilliant investigative drama about the real-life prolific serial killer Charles Cullen. He was a nurse in New Jersey who probably murdered hundreds of patients by contaminated their IV bags. The good nurse of the title is Amy Loughren, who worked night shifts with Cullen, and helped bring him in despite struggling with severe illness, being a single mum, and the obstructions of yet another hospital's administrative team trying to palm Charlie off.

The result is a film that is focussed on Amy and her battles, in a screenplay of deep empathy and subtlety from Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917, LAST NIGHT IN SOHO). It's also a film that focusses on the flaws in the hospital system that allowed Charlie to be detected - or at least suspicions raised - but for those hospitals to merely sack him and allow him to move on to his next set of victims. It reminded me of the Catholic Church, where sex offenders were knowingly moved on to new parishes rather than being dealt with openly for fear of (among other things) the legal and financial implications. 

What we don't get from this film is Charles Cullen's life story. There is no attempt to explain why he became a prolific serial killer or what his motivation was. He remains a mystery.  That may irk some of the more sensationalist viewers, but it's the right angle I feel. It also echoed another recent Netflix film, SHE SAID, in not shying away from what it means to be a working mother, and focusing on the toll that child-rearing takes on professional women. This seems like a new and welcome trend. 

I also love how the director, Tobias Lindholm, avoids any sensationalism in a film that exists in muted night-time tones of blue and grey, and where the actors barely speak above a whisper. The restraint that Lindholm shows reflects some of the ways in which he directed his episodes of the TV show Mindhunter, but with performances even more dialled down.  Jessica Chastain, fresh from her Oscar-winning larger-than life performance as Tammy Faye Baker, couldn't be smaller and quieter and gentler as Amy Loughren. And Eddie Redmayne is incredibly contained as Cullen, reminding me of his quiet and almost vanishing performance as a murderer in the seldom-watched and even less well-reviewed SAVAGE GRACE.  This makes the moment when Cullen does lose his temper in an interrogation room the more forceful.

The result is a film of slow but mounting dread and tension. A film that moves quietly and deftly to its conclusion, and provokes us to ask not what makes a serial killer, but what makes the system that protected him.

THE GOOD NURSE is rated R, has a running time of 121 minutes, played Toronto and the BFI London Film Festival, and was released on Netflix today. 

HOUSE OF CARDS - Season Three - Chapter Thirty-Five

COMMENT:  I had just been thinking how irrelevant Remy Danton had been to this season - a token black man in a white series.  And suddenly this show tackles the race issue head on with a stop and search. Will it have the balls to follow up this storyline, though?  Or will it just be a crush to get Remy and Jackie Sharp back into bed together?  Otherwise the Stamper storyline creaks it's wheels into the final act & the Russian-Israeli diplomatic fracas seems to be plausibly escalating.  Less insider political chicanery than I would've liked but a good tense and subtle episode.

PLOT SUMMARY:  Russian casualties in the UN peace-keeping mission cause a diplomatic crisis.   FU needs Yates to finish the book more than ever now as part of his campaign but he notices something is off.  Petrov refuses to allow the allies to investigate the attack so Claire asks the Russian Ambassador to help her back-channel the diplomacy.  The Ambassador accuses Petrov of having engineered the attack to isolate the Russians, as he never wanted the peacekeeping force. 

HOUSE OF CARDS - Season Three - Chapter Thirty-Three

COMMENTS: As predicted, Claire's comment that she shouldn't have made FU President has pushed him over the edge. This episode therefore plays as a gentle romantic drama as Frank and Claire bicker and then make-up, reunited forever.  It's a gentle episode, lacking in real political bite, and I wish they'd have pushed this storyline further.  But I loved the almost elegaic feel and the delicacy of the monks' art and its echo to the earlier religious themes in the season.  It feels to me like a major theme this season is how far humans have the right to take the action of gods - the power to take life - and the concepts of mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation.   So this episode is wonderful - but it does feel tonally different to the rest of the season.

HOUSE OF CARDS - Season Three - Chapter Thirty One

COMMENTS: What seems like another holding episode where the pieces are put in place on the chess board.  I must say that I find the UN story rather dull, and once again Claire's manipulation of the Russian ambassador seems to easy, compared to her deeply felt setbacks in season two.  A nice tidbit about the Underwoods not sleeping together. I hope that goes somewhere.  By contrast, what I don't want to see go anywhere is the supposed sexual tension between Jackie and Remy. Dull, dull, dull.  Finally, great to see Kim Dickens cast as the White House press correspondent for the Telegraph.  Other than that, however, this is not an episode that is either visually striking or particularly wickedly intriguing. 

PLOT SUMMARY: Francis declares unemployment a national emergency & so has FEMA report to him. DC is declared in a state of emergency & FU promises full employment in 12 months. FU  persuades House Majority Whip Jackie Sharp to declare against him & so lure the women's votes away from Dunbar before then backing FU. Remy Danton also pressures Jackie to marry her boyfriend Alan to ensure a family image and she succeeds in getting engaged. Remy, her ex-lover, is clearly jealous.  Congressional leaders threaten to pass a law preventing FU's use of FEMA funds but he sounds unworried.