Nightingale

David Oyelowo, star of the acclaimed Selma, is not just the lead but also the sole actor onscreen in this intimate, sometimes harrowing drama. Oyelowo plays Peter Snowden, a military veteran with a customer service job and a judgmental, homophobic mother who—as the film opens—is dead by Snowden's hands. Clues to the bloody killing are all around, until he finally disposes of the body and cleans up the evidence. Snowden keeps up the fiction that she is alive for friends and relatives who call while he prepares for a reunion with his old service buddy, with whom he is clearly obsessed. The truth of their relationship—one Snowden holds onto as an idealized love—is clearly more fraught than his monologues suggest. The drama unfolds in telephone calls, vlog posts, and one-way conversations spoken into his mother's vanity mirror. Oyelowo's performance is powerful as he rides a turbulent emotional and mental rollercoaster—with nuanced glimpses into his fragile state—but Nightingale is ultimately an unsure dramatic work. Snowden is angry, frustrated, and disconnected from reality—projecting his desires onto a fantasy situation—but the script serves up generalities as to how he got to this point. All of this plays out in the confines of a small suburban home (and, briefly, just outside the door), like a stage production, but this is actually an original script produced for HBO. Interesting but flawed, this is a strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)