New to Netflix this week is the Danish true-crime medical thriller, The Nurse. The limited series – which is based on a book of the same name by journalist Kristian Corfixen – stars Fanny Louise Bernth and Josephine Park, and follows the story of a nurse who begins working at a hospital where unexplained deaths take place.
In the series, Pernille is a young mother who has trained to be nurse. After landing her first major role at the local hospital, she begins working her shifts in Emergency Room 3, where she is assigned to take care of patients.
As this is Pernille’s first time working as a professional nurse, she is assigned a mentor to oversee her work and help guide her through the early stages of her career. This mentor is the charismatic Christina Aistrup Hansen, who knows the job inside out and is keen to get Pernille up to speed.
Together Pernille and Christina become the perfect pairing, and after working hard to save a patient’s life, Christina dubs them both ‘The Dream Team’. This fills Pernille with confidence, and the two work closely side-by-side.
However, a few days into the job a patient dies unexpectedly after going into cardiac arrest. The patient was young, displayed no major health conditions that would threaten their life, and when Pernille checked on her welfare a short while before, she seemed fine.
Could the patient’s health have suddenly declined to cause the cardiac arrest, or could something more sinister have taken place? And if so, who could be responsible?
Divided into four episodes – ‘I Will Survive’, ‘Dream Team’, ‘So Take My Heart’ and ‘The Night Shift’ – The Nurse is a gripping thriller which is based on a true story. The series provides a dramatization of the events surrounding one of Scandinavia’s most notorious crimes, with a focus on those worked alongside a killer.
The lead in the series is Pernille – a down-to-Earth mother, who is a compassionate soul who cares for her patients. Pernille’s journey to become a nurse provides a way into the story, with viewers following along as she takes her first few steps into a medical profession.
From here, the narrative opens up as she develops a friendship with Christina Aistrup Hansen and comes to look on her as the perfect nurse. However, things begin to take a dark turn when it appears as if something strange is going on in the hospital under Hansen’s watch, and that’s where the mystery really kicks in.
But it isn’t the only source of suspense and mystery, because running alongside Pernille’s story is an ongoing side-tale which takes place three years in the past. This additional plot thread, which concentrates on another unexplained death, opens up the suggestion that this isn’t the first time patients have died under foul play.
Fanny Louise Bernth is perfectly cast in the lead role of Pernille, bringing warmth and likeability to the part. She plays Pernille as an ‘every-woman’ character, who is very relatable, and who is put in a difficult position when she begins to suspect Hansen is behind all the deaths.
Pernille works in an environment where people don’t want to make waves, and where the merest suggestion of misconduct is dismissed as idle gossip. Bernth leans into this environment, and uses it to keep Pernille forever on her toes, by playing the character as someone permanently caught between a rock and a hard place.
On the opposite side of the tracks, but delivering an equally strong performance is Josephine Park as the self-assured Hansen. Park plays the role with conviction, making it entirely understandable why claims about her professional behaviour could be dismissed.
Add to all this a solid supporting cast, a couple of emotional scenes, and some well-framed shots, and The Nurse has all the right ingredients for an engaging drama. It lays out its story fairly evenly across all four episodes, building up a degree of tension along the way.
With The Nurse being a limited series, there is enough going on in here to tell an engaging story without it becoming too baggy. At no point does the series drag, and the drama builds very well.
If there is a criticism, it is that The Nurse is perhaps a little too short, and an additional episode would have been most welcome, to allow time to deal with the fallout from all the crimes. With this series being based on a true story, there is more story to tell and it would have been good to see an expansive wrap-up.
But as it stands, four episodes is enough to get to the crux of this crime. The final instalment leads to a strong conclusion and at no point does the drama tail off or is there any question over Hansen’s involvement.
The Nurse is a sad tale about someone in power taking advantage of vulnerable people, and this is conveyed quite clearly throughout. It opens up conversations about the ongoing need for checks and balances in hospitals and care facilities, and due to its distribution through Netflix the story will also bring this crime into a greater light.
If you are interested in true-crime shows, or you simply want to learn more about this particular case, The Nurse is an interesting way in. With each episode running around 45-50 minutes in length, the series can be devoured in one go, or spread out over a long weekend.
__
Thank you for taking the time to read this review on It’s A Stampede!. For more reviews, check out the recommended reads below.
It's A Stampede! 
Leave a Reply