Nightingale

Mr. Oyelowo gives a riveting, disorienting and suspenseful tour of an unraveling mind. The music and cinematography are artful, but the props are mundane.

The narrow perspective creates the disconcerting intimacy on which Nightingale thrives, but Lester’s strict adherence to it often feels compensatory and makes the film come across more like a conceptual exercise than a story.

Nightingale is really about David Oyelowo, a magnificent actor with astonishing range who draws viewers deep down into the darkness with his character. His skill in accomplishing this, of course, makes Nightingale something to be admired rather than loved, and, depending on your mood, maybe even something to be avoided.

Oyelowo now gives us an inverse performance [from his performance as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma], mesmerizing in its small, sad details and sense of anti-charisma. [29 May/5 Jun 2015, p.98]

Nightingale is overshot to appear more cinematic and underwritten to avoid pomposity, and that's okay. Both decisions are just that: choices to serve the character. Peter would be pleased with how his little film turned out.

Nightingale rages on at times with no real direction. At others, it hits us over the head with pretentious symbolism. Oyelowo's inspired performance keeps it afloat.

Despite some visual tricks--like letting Peter step into the sunlight--Nightingale is partly handcuffed in its contortions to keep Oyelowo alone onscreen, and outside voices to the barest of minimum. Indeed, even at its relatively brief length, the movie feels padded, as if this would work better as a “Twilight Zone” episode. That said, Oyelowo delivers an electric performance.

Aside from being a vehicle for a fascinating performance, Nightingale doesn’t quite satisfy as more than a very well-executed student film--a one-trick pony whose trick we’ve seen before.

Unfortunately, without a more solid platform, even the greatest performance can go only so far. Oyelowo is mesmerizing in the moment, but each moment dies behind him.

The riveting part is Oscar nominee David Oyelowo’s (“Selma”) solo performance as a disturbed war veteran who is struggling mightily to keep it together, despite the fact he’s already failed to do so as the film begins. The difficulty is that as credible as Oyelowo is, the whole script feels like a writerly set-up and you only believe it from time to time.

The power and ambiguity of the soldierly bond is one of the fascinating things in Nightingale. Alas, it’s the only fascinating thing about this movie, the only idea in the movie that isn’t blaringly obvious and hammered home. It’s a shame. What could have been an evocative journey into the mind of a lost veteran, as he opens up his thinking across a one-man show set entirely inside his house, is more like a quasi thriller revolving around a very mad hatter.