Nightingale

NIGHTINGALE is a provocative single-character drama that probes the darkest corners of a disturbed mind. It follows a lonely war veteran who begins to psychologically unravel ahead of an old friend's impending visit. This HBO Films presentation is a fascinating portrait of one man's descent into the delusions of a fractured mind. Told with incisive imagery, energy and humor, Nightingale is a compassionate depiction of isolation in the midst of a world ruled by social media. David Oyelowo gives a spellbinding, roller-coaster ride of a performance as Peter, the sole character in the film, a war veteran who lives in a nondescript ranch home with his mother, and shares an ongoing monologue with himself, and the audience, via his laptop computer's video recorder. Unhinged by dark memories, an unhealthy obsession with a former Army friend, and his banal life working at a supermarket and living in a house unchanged for decades, Peter admits that he recently "snapped" and killed his mother. The crime has a perversely liberating effect on Peter, who sees in his mother's demise a license to remodel their home and, especially, invite his army pal Edward over for dinner. Unable to get a commitment from Edward, and further agitated by a series of phone calls from his mother's concerned friends and his sister, Peter descends into a lonely, paranoid world where delusion and reality collide. As suspicions about his mother's fate escalate, Peter finds himself caught in a claustrophobic web of his own making, helpless to reverse the consequences of his recent actions and doomed to pay a severe price for his crime. (Cinemax)