Review: Jessica Chastain is good as ‘The Good Nurse,’ but Eddie Redmayne is bad as the bad nurse
This is an excerpt from an article that explores the film Jessica Chastain makes about death, gender and motherhood in a way that is both touching and unsettling.
THE GOOD NURSE
We can tell that Jessica Chastain is a serious person when she says this about her role in the upcoming film The Good Nurse, which is a comedy-drama film based on a memoir about a nurse (Redmayne) who was a “one-woman hospital.” Chastain has already made a name for herself in film and TV as a formidable heroine with a heart of gold, which is what she describes in the book, adapted by The Good Nurse’s director, Scott Neustadter (The Skeleton Key, A Beautiful Mind). In his film, Chastain stars as Emily, who grew up in the Midwest and is a single father raising his daughter Jane (Grace Fulton) while his wife Mary (Kate Lyn Sheil) works long hours at a job he doesn’t want her to leave. Emily, who has never had a partner in his life, is devastated by the news that his mother has died. With no one to help him, Emily heads to his mother’s bedside to make sure she has taken her last breaths, and he finds himself doing the job he has always wanted to do—that of a “good nurse.” The Good Nurse is an intriguing story told in a manner that avoids melodrama, and Chastain, known for her quiet demeanor, is able to convey some of the anxiety and anger that a mother has to endure at her daughter’s hospital bedside.
In our conversation, Chastain was clear that she understood that the film would be more than a simple tribute to a mother’s loss: “I’m going for the funny and the heart of the film.” But, in the end, she said to me that she had