The Night Listener
I didn’t even realize before tonight that this movie had been released in my market (Baltimore). I think that indicates the general level of interest in this grimy little almost-thriller, but nonetheless I will try to recall it after seeing it at a press screening about three weeks ago. So: Robin Williams plays Gabriel Noone, a radio host who strikes up a telephone friendship with a 14-year-old boy (Rory Culkin) who has written a harrowing chronicle of child abuse that a friend of Gabriel’s intends to publish. Problem is, there’s no proof the boy actually exists. In fact, his voice sounds a lot like the voice of his adoptive mother (Toni Collette), as Gabriel’s much-younger ex-lover (Bobby Cannavale) is quick to point out.
Gabriel becomes obsessed with proving the boy exists, and flies to Wisconsin for Christmas at the behest of his mother. The best parts of “The Night Listener” show Williams as a comically inept, fish-out-of-water gumshoe — the awkward, tragically gay urbanite schlepping around the snowy Midwest trying to track down someone who doesn’t want to be found. He finally finds the mother, who is blind, and things go downhill from there. I’ve never disliked Collette in a movie before this one: She oversells Donna’s weirdness and insecurity, lapsing all too easily into the grotesque. There’s absolutely no reason to trust her.
The fundamental problem with “The Night Listener” is that the central question — Is the boy real? — isn’t enough to sustain the narrative. The movie is just not all that inventive — it needs about three more twists to work. Sandra Oh, who delivers the liveliest performance in the movie as Gabriel’s part-time housekeeper, gives a speech about three-quarters of the way through that explains everything. If she had made that speech earlier (it begins with “I’ve done a little research”), there would be no movie. Williams is convincing enough, I suppose, as a lonely, desperate, middle-aged gay man, but his problem, as always in his “serious” movies, is that he withdraws so fully and somberly. He’s afraid of allowing even a glimpse of the quick-witted, improvisational Williams we love. The only time one of these self-consciously subdued Williams performances really worked was in “One Hour Photo,” which had the advantage of a great visual stylist, Mark Romanek, behind the camera. Patrick Stettner, director of “The Night Listener,” is not nearly so talented. The movie is narrow and forgettable.