The recently released The Good Nurse is one of the best Netflix movies of the year. Haunting and beautifully acted by Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, it is also a scathing indictment of the American medical system, which in the story is complicit in the horrendous acts of a serial killer.
Throughout the film, the various characters have a number of quotes that stand out. Some of these are notable for the ways they shed light on the personalities involved, while others contain potent foreshadowing, predicting things that will come to light as the movie reaches its climax.
“Where Did You Work At Before?”
Amy To Charlie When He Arrives
Amy Loughren is one of Jessica Chastain’s best roles. She has a strong bond with Charlie from the moment that they meet and, like any curious person, she actually asks him where he used to work.
It’s an innocuous question, but it ultimately ends up being a quite chilling one, because he has worked at several places. In each instance, he took the lives of his patients, but he was always released by the hospital without too much fuss, because they were ultimately more interested in protecting their own reputations than in seeing justice done.
“I Don’t Even Get To Have You.”
Amy’s Daughter Alex To Amy
One of the most important aspects of Amy’s character is her identity as a single mother. She repeatedly finds herself caught between her duties at the hospital and her obligations to her family.
This is an especially heartbreaking quote from her daughter, Alex. It is a reminder of just how much Amy has had to give up, as she has to keep working long hours at the hospital in order to make sure that she gets the health insurance she needs to keep herself in good health. She is thus very easy to sympathize and identify with.
“That Was How I Thought Of Her.”
Charlie Cullen, About His Mother
Charlie Cullen is one of Eddie Redmayne’s best roles. He manages to capture what makes this person so chilling, even as he also manages to make him, strangely enough, quite charismatic and even sympathetic.
In this quote, he speaks about the fact that he had to look at his mother’s dead body in the hospital ward. It’s a haunting revelation and, to an extent, it helps to explain the dark and sinister person that Charlie has become, someone who is willing and able to take the lives of those who have been entrusted to his care.
“I Don’t Have Health Insurance.”
Amy About Her Need For The Health Insurance The Job Provides
Like the best medical dramas, The Good Nurse is very much about the many conflicts that nurses face. In Amy’s case, she desperately needs health insurance. Given her heart condition, she won’t be able to afford treatment without it.
This is a particularly powerful quote because of the way that Chastain delivers it. It’s clear that Amy does love her job as a nurse, but she is also deeply, powerfully human, and she wants to stay in good health so that she can be around for her children. This is what makes her the movie’s undeniable hero.
“Something’s Not Right.”
Detective Danny Baldwin, About The Hospital
Though Amy is the hero of this story, she is also ed by the two detectives who are called in to investigate the mysterious deaths at the hospital. This is one of those quotes that makes it clear that this is going to be a movie about the apprehension of a killer.
It’s a signal to the audience that these two men aren’t simply going to take the hospital’s word for it. They are going to fully commit themselves to discovering just why it is that so many of the people under Cullen’s care end up dying in mysterious circumstances.
“I Know Charlie Really Well.”
Amy, Regarding Her Familiarity With Charlie
Part of what makes The Good Nurse such a great Netflix movie is how well it fleshes out the relationship between Amy and Charlie. This quote in particular illustrates just how much Amy has already begun to lean on Charlie, and how fully she has fallen under his spell.
It is also a quote that becomes more meaningful as the movie goes on, and it becomes clear that, in reality, she doesn’t know him that well at all. It’s precisely the revelation that he is a monster that makes her so angry about the deception and so determined to bring him to justice.
“OK, So I’m Going To Help You Do This.”
Amy To The Detectives
Like all the best movie heroes, Amy is not someone who is willing to shy away from doing what’s right. This is precisely why she decides to help the police when they begin to investigate Charlie in earnest.
This is a particularly powerful quote, however, because the viewer already knows what’s at stake if she pursues this. She will not only be putting herself into harm’s way — her heart can barely take the strain of working, let alone becoming part of a murder investigation — but will also be endangering her livelihood, since Charlie has been helping at the hospital.
“They Didn’t Stop Me.”
Charlie Cullen About His Motives
Charlie Cullen is one of the most terrifying serial killers to have appeared in a movie. Far from being a cartoon villain, he is instead someone who seems to be quite normal, and he doesn’t even have an outlandish or extraordinary motive for what he does.
When he reveals the truth of why he did what he did to Amy, it’s truly horrifying. It punctures the idea that there always has to be an explanation, some deeper reason, for why someone would kill so many. Instead, he shows that, ultimately, there is sometimes no explanation for evil.
“I Think The Universe Hates Me, Amy.”
Charlie Cullen To Amy
However evil he might be, there’s no question that Charlie seems to feel some genuine fondness for Amy. In this particular quote, he does seem to be revealing some measure of his inner sense of doubt to her, and she accepts it as such.
At the same time, it’s also a quote that has a great deal of inscrutability to it, especially since the viewer comes to realize that Charlie has been lying about so much. Is this just another means he has of manipulating others into what he wants her to think about him? The fact that it has no easy answers is precisely what makes it so chilling.
“I’ve Been All Over Really.”
Charlie To Amy
In the movie, this is one of the most important things that Charlie says. It’s his ission that he has been fired from a multitude of jobs, though of course he doesn’t reveal the full extent of this to Amy.
It is also one of the moments where the movie makes it clear just how much the hospitals are to blame for what he is able to do. Had any of them done the brave thing and held him able for his actions, he very well could have been prevented from committing many of his subsequent murders.
