Nightingale

In HBO's Nightingale, David Oyelowo gives the best performance of his career as Peter Snowden, a man quickly and violently descending into madness.

An audacious one-man show-a series of deluded, sometimes charming, often tragic, occasionally frightening monologues delivered by a troubled veteran clearly in the midst of a dissociative crisis.

The film is phenomenally acted, but rarely makes much use of the power of cinema, instead using a device associated more with theater-the one-set location, with a one-man cast.

The careful layering of the experiences and emotions that influence Peter's choices, along with expert massaging of the tension that exists from the start, make Nightingale a sad but satisfying film.

"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.

It's a performance that gets the writhing interplay of transparency and opacity in a character who has gone beyond the deep end of unhinged narcissism and self-dramatization.

As much as the claustrophobia of watching him alone spinning his wheels reinforces the idea of a man trapped, the story soon runs out of momentum.

It's a film that burrows into an unstable psyche, and nestles there uncomfortably.

Everything about Nightingale is richly expressive and chillingly effective.

David Oyelowo the sole actor, but by most accounts pulls if off.

David Oyelowo delivers an unnerving and unforgettable performance in this nail-biter of a one-man-show.

Nightingale is first an intellectualized puzzle, and a portrait of a man losing his mind a very distant second.