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. 

ANOTHER ROUND / DRUK - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day 8

Four middle-class, middle-aged Danish men are living in the Talking Heads nightmare - is this my beautiful wife? is this my beautiful car? how did I get here?!  So on a night out they decide to follow some cockamamie theory that if they just keep their blood alcohol level every so slightly raised at all times, they'll be looser, happier, more confident and more engaged with their lives.  And indeed it seems to work! Mads Mikkelsen's high school teacher - previously so disengaged he got hauled up his students - is suddenly like something out DEAD POET'S SOCIETY!  But the boys don't stop there, do they.  They decide to keep on up'ing the alcohol levels - for science! And naturally, as they start showing up drunk to work and getting bladdered on a Saturday night they might look like they're having the time of their lives, but their families notice and it wreaks havoc on their personal lives.  And - of course - alcohol might take the edge off anxiety or boredom and help a transformation, but it can't solve deep underlying pain.  And the beauty of this film is that as much as it is a wonderful celebration of male friendship and the joys of getting slightly drunk, it's also not blind to the way in which some people cannot stick to a moderate high and for whom alcoholism will exacerbate their depression The result is a film that is beautifully balanced - showing the negative and the positive.  And when it ends with a moment of true physical and emotional catharsis that exploits Mads Mikkelsen's dance training (who knew?!) it doesn't feel cheap or twee but earned and glorious and liberating.

Kudos to all involved - not least director and co-writer Thomas Vinterberg for his elegant and intimate direction, as well as Tobias Lindholm for his truthful and deeply funny script - but most of all to Mikkelsen for a physical performance that is so finely calibrated that it once again impresses you with his control and mastery of the art. 

ANOTHER ROUND has a running time of 113 minutes. The film played Toronto, San Sebastian and London 2020. It will be released in the UK on November 20th 

London Film Fest 2012 - Top Picks - THE HUNT

This year, I'm trying to point the casual festival-goer to a handful of movies that are truly wonderful and CRUCIALLY, for which it is still possible to get tickets at the time of writing. After all, what's the point of reading Top Pick lists that tell you to go and watch AMOUR when it was sold out about a minute into the members' booking period? Not that you shouldn't still try to see AMOUR, or ARGO, or the other hot tickets - the BFI does a great job in releasing unused sponsor's tickets, and there are always Returns - keep an eye on the Festival website or follow the BFI on twitter for more info. That said, THE HUNT is a quality movie, fêted at Cannes, that you can still get tickets for, without all the hoop-la.

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg - of FESTEN fame - reunites the team behind his most recent quiet, austere drama SUBMARINO, to take a hard look at what happens when an innocent man in a small town is accused of sexually abusing a child.  There is no melodrama here - no wild hysteria - but the quiet destruction of a man's life and reputation, the frighteningly casual way in which a man can be ostracised, when a child "says something foolish" and it all gets out of hand.  The violence is mostly contained, and all the more frightening for when it does rear up through the façade of bourgeois life - all the more sinister and the more likely to leave a lasting paranoia.

There are no easy choices here.  The man accused - Lucas - is a humble, beloved kindergarten teacher. A sensitive man who one day offers to walk his best friend's daughter to school so as to escape her parents' argument.  No good deed goes unpunished - and to a sensitive child, this special attention, when suddenly coming up against the bounds of proprietary - leads to a heartbreak and a foolish vengeful thought - a thought whose power Klara can barely understand.  The poor parents and teachers of course have to take it seriously, even with the accused is their best friend.  Which parent has the fortitude to call their daughter a liar? 

The power of this movie lies in its closely observed, beautifully acted scenes of apprehension and concern.  The young actress who plays Klara, Annika Wedderkopp, delicately portrays a child who lies, becomes confused, tries to protest her innocence, simply can't remember, but only knows she's lost her friend.  And Mads Mikkelsen is typically superb as Lucas, playing so far within himself one almost forgets his impressive physicality.  He truly is an astonishing actor - able to go from hapless, buffoon in PUSHER, to Bond villain, to this almost passive Good Man. There's a particularly tense, cathartic scene near the end of the film, where you can see this two, separated by a movie's length of town panic, broking some kind of reconciliation - and it's quite simply magnetic.  Finally, one also has to praise cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen for her richly coloured Danish landscapes and pristine digital lensing.  

THE HUNT aka JAGTEN played Cannes 2012 where Mads Mikkelsen won Best Actor and cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen won the Vulcain Prize for the Technical Artist and director Thomas Vinterberg won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.  It also played Toronto and London 2012. It opens on October 25th in the Netherlands; on November 14th in Belgium, France and Russia; on November 30th in the UK; on January 10th in Denmark and Portugal; on February 1st in Norway and Sweden; on March 8th in Iceland and on March 28th in Germany.

Running time 110 minutes. Tough material but no explicit sexual content.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 14 - SUBMARINO

Nick and Martin are brothers living in contemporary Copenhagen, struggling to deal with the childhood trauma of their little brother dying of neglect as the result of their mother's alcoholism. Nick has served time, and now passes the day at the gym or drinking and the evenings with a hooker. Martin is a junkie who turns to pushing to support his little boy. Both of them, in their own fucked-up way, try to protect the kids in their lives, as a sort of penance for having failed their little brother.

The movie is austere, closely observed and unrelentingly grim. It is a return, if not in form, but in content, to the Dogme style of film-making that Thomas Vinterberg (DEAR WENDY) originated in. The lead performances are strong, and the stories of the two brothers - who are estranged for much of the film - are deftly inter-twined. However, I am not sure why, but I just couldn't get into the film. Something about the unrelenting self-annihilation kept me at a distance, just as the brothers try to distance themselves from their emotions, with alcohol and smack respectively. As a result, SUBMARINO is a film that I admired rather than enjoyed.

SUBMARINO played Berlin 2010 and was released in September in France, Finland and the Netherlands. It opens in Belgium on November 17th.