The Night Listener (2006)

A score of 5.9 with 12,000 reviewers here on IMDb reminds me of just how simple minded the majority of movie goers can be. But if your IQ is higher than room temperature readings and you enjoy a complex, thought provoking, psychological flicks, then this is a must see for you.If you are tuning in for a Robin Williams' laugh, forget it. This is a serious role and effortlessly show that Williams' talent went far beyond just comic roles. Perhaps fellow movie goers rated this film low out of disappointed not to find any chuckles in this flick, or were upset to find another movie where Williams' character was a homosexual male. Your guess is as good as mine.Toni Colette's outstanding performance shouldn't be missed by her following; it is perhaps, her best work that has gone unappreciated and unrecognized.Don't miss out on this little sleeper.

The Night Listener is essentially quite straightforward: a study in obsession and loneliness. The two protagonists are almost mirror images of each other, one an ageing homosexual writer and the other an attention-seeking fantasist. It was billed, by some, as a thriller, and consequently criticised for not being very thrilling, not being very mysterious and, finally, not really having a story. Certainly, there is no resolution to 'the story' as such, but then whether of not the young boy existed is not relevant. What is relevant is that the storyteller, whose younger lover has left him, desperately wants there to be a boy, desperately wants to have a son. The other obsessive, a woman who apparently invents the boy to get attention, will do anything to keep the fiction going. The film plays trick a little viewer and I cannot make up my mind whether it does so fairly or not. So, for example, we are shown the fictional boy talking to the storyteller on the phone and then handing the receiver to the obsessive woman. So, it would seem, and do the film would have us believe, he really did exist. Yet he didn't: he really is just a vehicle for the obsessive to get the attention she craves. A final scene confirms it: at the end of the film she has moved to another town to start a new life, is no longer blind and the fictional boy in her life is no longer the victim of paedophile parents, but has lost a leg. Finally, of course, it doesn't matter whether or not the film plays fair. Its essence is to portray the private despair of an essentially decent man whom life is slowly but surely passing by. If you read other reviews, you will hear it claimed that The Night Listener is a cracking thriller or, alternatively, not worth a minute of the running time. Both views are wrong, but more to the point mistake, The Night Listener is a gentle film in which the storyteller finds some sort of peace, if only an acceptance that he is getting older and that life is not always as accommodating as we fondly wish. Furthermore, the film is beautifully shot in dark browns of different hues, in shadows, at night. Daylight and light generally play no part in the storyteller's world. Very little is distinct, and ironically the only real understanding and openness comes from two younger characters who are sceptical of the boys existence from the start. This is a slow-moving, in many ways uneventful film which succeeds because it doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is: an examination of obsession and loneliness. If you like a certain kind of film, you will like it. Williams is very good in portraying the storyteller's loneliness and Toni Collette also turns in a good performance. If you want a thriller, forget it. There is so much more to this film than that.

I personally like Robin Williams, and will watch almost anything with him in it, that was obviously the case here, I didn't know what to expect. Basically late night radio host Gabriel No one (Williams) has his male lover needing space, so while he is gone he likes to talk to the young writer of a new manuscript, fourteen-year-old Pete D. Logand (Signs' Rory Culkin). Pete is very ill, and the only contact Gabriel has with him is through his blind adoptive mother Donna D. Logand (Toni Collette), but this relationship is very unsettling without Peter himself on the phone. Gabriel becomes suspicious of Donna, so he goes to find and confront Donna and Peter, and this is unsuccessful, we are wondering if Peter even really existed. Also starring Bobby Cannavale as Jess, Terminator 2's Joe Morton as Ashe, John Cullum as Pap No one and Bean's Sandra Oh as Anna. The story doesn't make all that much sense, and to be honest it isn't interesting enough for you to care about, even being based on real events. Adequate!

It is always interesting when Robin Williams strays outside the space in which he is most effective (or not, as some may argue).As in "Insomnia" and "One Hour Photo", his character here is more complex. Williams plays an acclaimed writer, Gabriel No one, who has also parlayed his writing into a successful late night radio show.Williams' troubles start when an avid fan makes contact with him during a slump period in his career and personal life. The fan is a boy with a terminal condition who starts sharing stories of the terrible abuse he suffered while growing up.As the relationship deepens, a more sinister aspect emerges, and the movie shifts into a mystery mode.The problem is that the pace is too slow, and it becomes clear too early in the plot what is going on. The story also fails to build interest or anxiety especially around the imperilment of Williams' character.And that's ultimately a casting problem, because in concept there's actually nothing wrong.