Nightingale

What makes the disturbing story gripping, beyond Oyelowo’s spellbinding performance, is its humor, defining compassion and incisive imagery.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Nightingale is tediously literal-minded and anal-retentively "worked out." There's something stiflingly theoretical about the movie.