The Good Nurse

Krysty Wilson-Cairns, who wrote the new thriller, on the real-life events that inspired it.

We were walking out, and I said, ‘This is hard,’ and she was like, ‘This isn’t even the hardest things I’ve done this week.’ I said, ‘Well, you did catch a serial killer that one time,’ and she told me, ‘That’s not even the hardest thing I did. “Because you're hamstrung by what actually happened, that makes you have to be more inventive, more creative, and it makes you have to really double down into the essential,” the screenwriter says. “When we were about to go on stage at the Toronto International Film Festival, Amy and I were a bit nervous; it was the first time an audience had watched the film. “She was the person who used her humanity to awaken his,” she says. In The Good Nurse, Redmayne takes a chilling turn as Cullen, while Chastain plays Amy Loughren, another hospital nurse who befriends Cullen before realizing that something is terribly wrong and sets out to stop it. The Good Nurse, the new drama streaming now on Netflix, has all the makings of a classic thriller: There’s a seemingly unstoppable villain, a heroine forced to display incredible bravery, and stakes as high as they can possibly be.

The Good Nurse, starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, is a haunting drama that ends with a cold, dark conclusion.

Amy goes to lunch with Charlie and wears a wire, but doesn’t manage to get a confession. A slight date error was enough to be considered a breach of contract, and Charlie was terminated. Before the credits roll, we’re given updates on the real-life Amy Loughren and Charles Cullen. Amy agrees to meet with him and requests his handcuffs be removed. Fortunately, Amy is about to get some help on the job, as the hospital hired a man with “tons of experience” and “great recommendations.” This, of course, is none other than Charles Cullen. This minor breach of contract was a convenient way for the hospital (who was withholding information from authorities that would further confirm Charlie's guilt) to get Charlie off their backs. Amy explains to the detectives that a double medication error is incredibly rare, and that she doesn’t believe Charlie has anything to do with it for several reasons. The detectives discover that in 1995 during his time at a hospital in Pennsylvania, Charles was charged with criminal trespassing and harassment for slashing a co-worker’s tires post-breakup. It was also hard for her to believe that someone so loyal and genuinely caring could be capable of such a crime. Amy tells the detectives what she discovered and pleads with them not to reveal her name as the source of the new information because she will get fired. The film’s opening scene thrusts the audience into the unpredictable reality of working in a hospital. [Jessica Chastain](https://collider.com/tag/jessica-chastain/)) and Charles Cullen ( [Eddie Redmayne](https://collider.com/tag/eddie-redmayne/)), a new nurse in Amy’s unit.