The Good Nurse

Leads match the real white nurse and killer. Supporting black actors (notably detective Baldwin and a police chief) appear in modern New Jersey roles without the plot or marketing treating identity as the point. Diversity is visible but background, not a quota-style main-cast push or race-swap of the core true-story heroes.

Talk is about hospital lies, risk managers, insurance waits, and staff who look away. That is system and money talk, not identity, race, gender, or queer activist lines. Viewers hear political edge, but it is care-system and liability talk, not woke slogan dialogue.

Core themes are serial murder, friendship, fear, and a nurse who speaks up. Amy is a strong single mom because that is the real case, not a modern identity arc. Director praise for her as a human hero is light “strong woman” framing, not a race, gender, or LGBTQ identity crusade.

The film and its makers clearly blame a profit-first hospital system that hid deaths and shuffled a killer from job to job. Amy’s lack of insurance and the cover-up plot make that hard to miss. It is progressive system critique of U.S. healthcare, not a focus on patriarchy, whiteness, colonial guilt, or traditional family as the enemy.

Key names sit mostly low-to-mild on cached woke scores (Lindholm 23, Wilson-Cairns 14, Graeber 0; several producers near 0–15). Aronofsky is higher (44) with progressive eco and activist history, but that track record does not reshape this film into identity-first content.