Our friend, Natalia Elba was at the Tribeca Film Festival last week! Throughout the week, we’ll be posting her reviews of the movies she saw there! Below is her review of The Good Doctor. WARNING: There are spoilers in this review.
By: Natalia Elba
In The Good Doctor, Orlando Bloom (Pirates of the Caribbean) plays a shy lonely Dr. Martin Blake who recently moves to America from England. Aside from his social awkwardness, he meets an 18-year-old patient with a kidney infection named Diane, played by Riley Keough (The Runaways). For fear of losing her, he tampers with her medicine, which forces her to go back to the hospital. While he switches her IV bags and medication, he risks her life and his career to be with her.
While he’s taking care of Diane’s faux kidney infection, he yearns for respect from nurses and the head of internal medicine, Dr. Waylans (Rob Morrow), to be part of Waylans’ elite group of doctors. As soon as he gets close to his patient, Diane dies, leaving him distraught. He then gets approached by a womanizing nurse, drug abusing Nurse Jimmy (Michael Peña) who happens to find her diary and blackmails Dr. Martin Blake. In exchange for the diary, Dr. Blake must bring him prescription painkillers to keep Jimmy’s mouth shut. Knowing that Jimmy will never stop blackmailing him, Martin spikes a painkiller with potassium chloride which kills Jimmy. After police investigations, no one suspects anything about Martin and he goes on working and living like nothing happened.
This movie may not be the greatest film ever made, but it is obvious that Orlando Bloom has done a superb job channeling a creepy-yet-romantic loner character. Riley Keough shows her character off by talking about her good-for-nothing boyfriend and how she has a tough time getting rid of him and asks Orlando Bloom’s character for advice.
With many “WTF” moments and fairly good writing, the film seems to be getting really good until Riley Keough’s character dies. But the biggest disappointment would have to be the ending. It gave no reassurance to the audience, and you will most likely leave the theater with mixed feelings. So in conclusion, I would give the film a 6 out of 10 rating.
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