The Good Nurse

The Good Nurse wraps tense drama inside a crime thriller. Consequently, it avoids cliches by focusing on characters. Plus, its message critiques the broader corruption that enabled the murderer. Fundamentally, The Good Nurse presents a protagonist struggling against an unfair system (instead of an unusual villain), making the story important and relatable. Meanwhile, the acting drives the film with consistent density and energy. Chastain conveys bottled anxiety and quiet sadness as she endures severe pain. Redmayne is subtly sinister, masked behind an unpredictable meekness. There's extreme intensity, natural chemistry, and raw vulnerability. Overall, The Good Nurse is emotionally striking.

Technically, The Good Nurse is proficient. Its gradual editing uses cooldown transitions and slow pacing to emphasize feelings. The sound utilizes natural ambiance, split cuts, and silence for symbolic punctuations. Also, there's atmospheric music, distressed production designs, an experienced cast, and makeup effects that highlight a sense of mortality. Finally, the cinematography uses slow movement, off-screen implications, low-key lighting, shallow focus, desaturated colors, obscured foregrounds, confined framing, and divisive barriers to underscore tension and isolation. It's a smaller film, but The Good Nurse does more with less. Ultimately, it's likely to make an impression.

Writing: 8/10

Direction: 8/10

Cinematography: 9/10

Acting: 9/10

Editing: 7/10

Sound: 7/10

Score/Soundtrack: 7/10

Production Design: 7/10

Casting: 8/10

Effects: 6/10

Overall Score: 7.6/10