Female Film Critics 24/375
It made no sense to have Netflix release The Good Nurse in late October, followed by a far-more detailed account of the same serial killer in its own Capturing the Killer Nurse in early November. Based on Charles Graeber’s book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Madness, Medicine, and Murder, both follow the investigation that led to serial killer Charles Cullen’s arrest in 2003.
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Efficient yet gentle, a hospital nurse hooks up an IV bag of medication for an older woman, something to soothe the allergic reaction she’s having. The woman’s spouse nuzzles his head close to hers as her eyes close, resting. So much trust—about the nurse, their skills, and what’s in that bag. That’s ultimately what makes the Netflix crime drama The Good Nurse so unsettling.
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The Good Nurse dramatizes suspenseful, terrifying medical villainy. Films and television series highlight criminal activity in its many incarnations. Of course, nefarious deeds deliver conflict, tension, and suspense as perpetrators are pursued. But there’s an exceptionally unnerving impact with blatant disregard of life when it revolves around intentional medical malice. At least, that’s how I felt throughout the unsettling, masterfully presented The Good Nurse.
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The film – which just earned two Golden Globes, for best dramatic motion picture and best movie director for Sam Mendes – was brilliantly devised, written and lensed to look as if it was shot in one long, unbroken take. Between the clever work of Roger Deakins and editor Lee Smith, it’s an incredible technical marvel.
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In 1917, the doughboys fighting the Great War still thought they’d be home by Christmas. The film “1917” tells the story of two of those soldiers, Lieutenants Blake and Scofield. They are assigned an impossible task, one that makes the goal of “Saving Private Ryan” seem like tiddlywinks.
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What’s extraordinary about Sam Mendes’ epic W.W.I film is that it follows the harrowing journey of two young British infantryman in one seemingly continuous shot. On April 6, 1917, when phone lines have been cut on the Hindenberg Line in France, Lance Corporal Blake is summoned to deliver an important directive preventing a planned advance to the front because the Germans have set an ambush.
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