Starring: Toni Collette, Robin Williams, Joe Morton, Bobby Cannavale, Rory Culkin Directed By: Patrick Stettner Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Miramax Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: January 09, 2007 Running Time: 81 minutes Theatrical Release Date: August 04, 2006
Product Description: Robin Williams and Toni Collette star in this superb adaptation of Armistead Maupin's best-selling novel about a gay radio memoirist who becomes intrigued with a manuscript written by a survivor of sexual abuse.System Requirements:Run Time: 91 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 786936718133 Manufacturer No: 05266900
Amazon.com: Celebrity and psychosis collide to truly creepy effect in The Night Listener. Radio personality Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams) is asked to read an advance copy of a memoir by a boy who was horribly abused by his parents. Struck by the boy's story, Noone starts talking to him over the phone, gradually taking an almost parental interest in him--until someone suggests that the boy may not be exactly who he seems. Troubled, Noone flies to Wisconsin, where he meets the boy's social worker (Toni Collette, The Sixth Sense, In Her Shoes) and uncovers some alarming secrets. Don't let the vague, faux-literary title The Night Listener lead you astray; this is a horror movie and a very good one. There are no supernatural monsters or relentless axe-murderers, only a damaged, manipulative mind, which proves to be creepier than any serial killer. Williams gives an excellent, quirk-free performance, but it's Collette who gets under your skin and crawls around. She's vividly eerie, the sort of performance that can stick with you for days. Stealthy, surprising, and wonderfully acted all around--the movie also features Joe Morton (The Brother from Another Planet), Bobby Cannavale (The Station Agent), and Sandra Oh (Sideways)--The Night Listener is an unexpected gem. --Bret Fetzer
eerie Robin Williams plays Gabriel Noone, a radio personality, who is going through a "time-out" from his lover. He's been asked to review a book from a young man, with health problems, who happens to be Gabriel's biggest fan. The book is a memoir of a childhood filled with abuses and other strange incidents.
Within a short amount of time, Gabriel becomes fond of this fan, even though they've only communicated via telephone. That is, until one day, his estranged lover suggested that the fan may not be who he claims to be. Irked by the suggestion, Gabriel decides to head out and investigate. This is where things become eerie because things are just not what they seem to be.
*The Night Listener* moves somewhat slow but I do understand that it was necessary to build suspense. Yet, the result that it produced wasn't as creepy as it could have been. Overall, good but just don't expect it to be mind-blowing like *Sixth Sense* or *The Others*.
Don't Answer The Phone... After reading the DVD box quote by Roger Ebert: "An Eerie, Hitchcockian Thriller.", I was expecting a cross between PSYCHO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and REAR WINDOW. Well, I was pretty far off the mark! THE NIGHT LISTENER (based on a true story) isn't a very physical, or exhillerating movie. Instead, it is a movie that crawls under the skin with creeping dread. The story deals w/ the unpredictability of the mentally damaged. Robin Williams (ONE HOUR PHOTO, INSOMNIA) is his normal / abnormal stellar self as radio storyteller, Gabriel Noone who gets drawn into what he believes to be a close phone relationship w/ a horribly abused 14yo boy named Peter Logand. Of course, things are never quite as they appear to be. This time out, Williams gets to play the goodguy, plagued by Peter's caretaker, Donna (the incredible Toni Collette from The Dead Girl), who could be playing games w/ Noone, and just might be dangerous. Is Donna leading Gabriel along for some dark purpose? Worse, is she leading him deeper into her own insanity? I usually don't mention extras, but I recommend watching "The Night Listener Revealed" on this disc, as it explains a lot. Robin Williams actually gives the most chilling statement when he describes the real "Donna" making her presense known during the films production. Brrr! So, watch the movie and the extras, including a deleted scene that is definitely more "thrilling" than the rest of the movie!...
A Modest Proposal No doubt it would have been scarier if Robin Williams had played the caregiver of the poor 14 year old abused boy Pete Logand, and Toni Collette had played the driven radio talk show host whose drab life gets a shot in the arm when she becomes obsessed with getting in touch with the boy, who has written what could turn out to be a best seller in the making, THE BLACKING FACTORY, describing his early life in his parents' basement as the victim of a gang of midwestern pervs. If Williams had been the caregiver, well, he's famous for doing all those voices and he would have played the part to a T. Plus, it's been far too long since Toni Collette got to take the leading part in a movie and she probably could have handled the domestic part as well, although the relationship she would have been in with Bobby Cannavale (a younger man whose AIDS diagnosis had, until very recently, doomed him to a death sentence, and now he wants a new taste of freedom away from Toni Collette) would have been a straight relationship--but still poignant, and possibly more poignant than it is right now. As "Gabrielle" Noone, Toni would have been able to ace those scenes with her crotchety, conservative Southern father -- played by John Cullum as if someone had shot him in the butt shortly before the director called out "Action" with an extra dose of irascibility.
Maybe I should ask this on IMDB, but I didn't understand the point of the scene where Robin Williams, as the male Gabriel Noone, is snooping around Donna's house and finds a pile of mail all addressed to Peter Logand. What's that supposed to tell us? Isn't Pete supposed to live in the house too? Does he recognize all the letters because he wrote them all? Or are they all from different famous people whom Peter has reached out to, just like the real JT LeRoy? JT LeRoy must have realized his days were numbered as soon as this movie came out, or rather, as soon as the novel that inspired it hit the bookstores. You can't help but read it and think of JT LeRoy. I kept looking at that name "Peter Logand" and thinking it must be sort of an anagram (like Gabriel "Noone" was a shorthand for "No One.") But an anagram for what--Pretend Goal?
A Good Start...but The Night Listener, based on a true story, starts fairly auspiciously. A personally troubled, openly gay radio host (Robin Williams) is contacted by a teenage fan who is dying of AIDS, (although illness is only part of the boy's story). The host is given a manuscript of the boy's life story, which is soon to be published. The boy is reported to have been enslaved and subjected to unthinkable torture and rape at the hands of both his parents and others. We presume the boy contracted AIDS during that period. When we see him, the boy is whittling away his final days communicating with the radio host and using him as a sort of support group. Ironically, the radio host uses the boy as a sort of support group as well as he is suffering through realtionship troubles himself.
The boy resides with a foster parent who also communicates with the radio host and shares the radio host's great sympathy for the young boy's plight. After a short time the validity of the boy's story comes in to question to the point where his actual existence is even doubted.
The Night Listener has potential but is lazily directed. With a surprisingly brief 80 minute run time, The Night Listener never really achieves a dramatic arc. Rather it plods along with the faint promise that danger may lurk ahead. Yet when all is revealed, the truth is anti-climactic to say the least. It's a journey that leaves you feeling as if it should have led you someplace more worthwhile. This script could have benefitted greatly from some fleshing out of characters and more attention to build-up and payoff.
one can truly appreciate this movie if you understand factitious disorder this movie is definitely what i see as a step beyond factitious disorder, where one acts as if he or she has an illness by deliberately producing, feigning, or exaggerating symptoms or intentionally acts physically or mentally ill. if one is interested in a deeper understanding, reference the DSM-IV, as factitious d/o is an actual mental diagnosis. sometimes one can have factitious d/o by proxy, where the feigning of an illness is put upon someone else. in the case of this movie, i say it's a step beyond due to the boy not being real in addition to his illness. i thought the ending really wrapped it all together, as the audience sees how sick toni collette's character, donna, really is as she is obviously not even blind. those who understand the psychology behind factitious disorder can really appreciate this movie for its depiction of how deep this disorder can manifest. dark and eery indeed, especially since it is based on a real life story!
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