Nightingale Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Nightingale Blu-ray Movie Review

Sad and Lonely Song

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 15, 2015

It's easy to imagine Nightingale as an intimate one-man play performed on a bare stage with a few props. In fact, though, writer Frederick Mensch wrote it as a film script (his first to be made), and director Elliott Lester (Blitz) has used the intimacy of cinema to intensify Mensch's account of a mind in its final stages of disintegration. But in whatever form it is presented, Nightingale stands or falls on its central (and sole) performance, and the film is blessed with a tour de force by David Oyelowo, who is utterly unrecognizable here compared to his Oscar-nominated turn as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in last year's Selma. Alternately pitiful and terrifying, Oyelowo's Peter Snowden is an unforgettable character. Whether viewers will enjoy the experience of getting to know him is a different question.

Produced independently, Nightingale premiered in June 2014 at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It was subsequently acquired by HBO, which first broadcast the film on May 29, 2015 and is now releasing it on Blu-ray.

"A moment of clarity is the rarest gift we're given on this planet."
The entire action of Nightingale takes place within, and just outside, the house that Peter Snowden used to share with his elderly mother. The circumstances of his mother's departure are a critical element of the plot. Peter talks incessantly, sometimes to himself (there are mirrors throughout the house in which he can address his reflection) and often to the web camera in his notebook computer, on which he records video diary entries for his website. At least we assume they are for his website, because he refers to "comments" from viewers online. But one thing that quickly becomes evident about Peter Snowden is how unreliable a narrator he is. It's not that he lies deliberately, but much of what he relates exists only in his mind. When he makes or receives phone calls, we hear only his side of the conversation, and he never relates what the other person said (if indeed there was anyone there). Very quickly you begin to look around the frame for evidence to corroborate what Peter is saying, and only rarely does director Lester provide anything solid.

Taking Peter at his word, we learn that he is an Army veteran, although he never refers to tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. Either his service predated those operations or he was never sent to either locale (or, possibly, he was mustered out in basic training when his issues manifested themselves). In any case, it rapidly becomes apparent that Peter's problems predate his military experience, and that Nightingale is not just another story about PTSD or some service-related trauma. The significance of Peter's Army experience is that he made an important friendship with another soldier named Edward, with whom he recently re-connected. The prospect of renewing their old ties has given Peter new hope. The only problem, according to Peter, is that Edward's wife, Carol, does not want her husband hanging out with Army buddies and is therefore blocking Peter's calls and refusing to pass along his messages.

When Peter finally does manage to get Edward on the phone, he invites him to dinner, then becomes obsessed with planning the perfect evening, fussing over every detail of the menu and even redecorating the house for the occasion. Meanwhile, Peter's sister, Vicki, keeps calling to express her concern, and Peter's credit cards become overdrawn. (Near the film's beginning, he wears the uniform and name tag of a supermarket checkout clerk, but that quickly disappears.) As the appointed date for Edward's dinner approaches, Peter's anticipation builds out of all proportion to the event. Whatever happens, no mere reunion with an old Army buddy could possibly live up to Peter's expectations.

Both Mensch's script and Oyelowo's performance deliberately leave the nature of Peter's interest in Edward ambiguous. The immediate suspicion is sexual attraction, but as Peter keeps talking, he seems less and less like a person interested in sex than a desperately lonely kid yearning for a pal. His fits of temper are vicious and intimidating, but they have the quality of childhood tantrums (and pass just as quickly). Similarly, his enthusiasms carry him away like helium balloons, floating far above all concerns of practicality. Peter can't understand why everyone else doesn't see it his way.

Lester uses a variety of cameras and camera angles, including webcast video from Peter's laptop and footage that looks as if it came from surveillance monitors in the house (though none are in evidence). Parts of Nightingale are shot as if Peter were being watched, which he probably feels that he is. Other portions are shot conventionally, with the camera operating as an invisible observer. The constant change in perspective is deliberately unsettling, because the viewer can never be sure what point of view to take, just as none of Peter's statements can be trusted. You're not even sure whether news broadcasts heard off camera or knocks at the door are real or figments of Peter's imagination. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Nightingale is how effectively it pulls the viewer into a world where the boundaries between reality and delusion have utterly dissolved. Peter's ramblings suggest that childhood trauma caused his breakdown, but the home movies that play behind the closing credits paint a different picture. Mensch's script provides no easy answers. Some people just fall apart, and no one knows why.

Nightingale Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nightingale is the first feature shot by Pieter Vermeer as a cinematographer, although Vermeer's experience dates back to 1989, when he worked as an electrician on Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Although specific information was not available, it appears that the film was captured with different types of HD digital cameras, mostly professional but some possibly of consumer grade. The film's opening, which establishes the video diary motif, features the kind of blocky backgrounds and rough overall texture that one often encounters (and overlooks) in home DV. Since this could have been adjusted on the digital intermediate in post-production, one must assume that it was deliberately left that way. Having demonstrated that we are dealing with a do-it-yourself video diarist, Vermeer and director Lester do not use the effect again.

HBO's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which was presumably sourced directly from digital files, is excellent. Images in daylight and well-lit interiors are sharp, detailed and colorful. Images at night and in darkened areas of the house have the naturally dark quality that Hollywood films rarely get right, because the studios want their stars to be seen. Blacks are solid, and contrast is very good. Except for the opening sequence described above, there are no artifacts.

HBO has mastered Nightingale with an average bitrate of 29.99 Mbps, which is very good, especially with the many fast cuts and Peter Snowden's rapid movements.

Nightingale Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The key element in Nightingale's 5.1 sound mix, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, is David Oyelowo's protean voice, as Peter Snowden reports, justifies, sings, complains, reproaches, cajoles, repeatedly loses his temper and (sometimes) apologizes for it. The Blu-ray's audio track captures all of the subtle inflections that Oyelowo has worked into the performance. A few other voices are heard briefly off-camera, either from TV broadcasts or from outside the front door when someone from the Snowden family's church comes knocking. The remainder of the sound design has a variety of specific effects, most of which relate to objects or events onscreen (e.g., the bubbling of the large aquarium that Peter acquires), but some of which are oddly disembodied (notably the sound of old phonograph record scratches, which is a recurrent motif). The original score is credited to director Lester's regular collaborator, Mark D. Todd. Several vintage selections are heard, of which the most important is Matt Monro's cover of "The Good Life", which plays over the closing credits.

Nightingale Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc has no extras.

Nightingale Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Every time a horrifying incident of mass public carnage makes headlines, certain positions are advanced with the predictability of Christmas catalogs arriving in fall. One of them is that we need to do a better job of identifying and treating those with a history of mental problems, so that they can helped before they turn violent. Nightingale is a timely reminder of just how difficult that simple-sounding prescription really is. When Peter Snowden's sister, Vicki, moved away, leaving her mother and brother in the house where she grew up, Peter probably seemed troubled but otherwise fine. To his neighbors and co-workers (if he had any), he no doubt seemed eccentric but not necessarily dangerous. Peter managed, until he no longer could. Then, as he himself puts it, something snapped. Among its many difficult questions, Nightingale asks whether anyone could have seen that coming. Recommended for artistry, though not necessarily for enjoyment.