Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Rory Culkin
Directed by Patrick Stettner
Rated R
Patrick Stettner’s The Night Listener, based off of the 2000 book by Armistead Maupin, reminded me a lot of Freedomland.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a good thing. Both films are marketed one way, but in actuality they’re something else entirely. They are also both way too preachy.
The Night Listener wants to be a creepy thriller, with all that eery music, but at the beginning of the film there is a lot of reality-based relationship and character exposition that is so genuine I was willing to follow a character study. However, things change about halfway through the film when it turns into a thriller. I was somewhat engrossed with that dynamic, but then came the moralistic ending, in which the movie tries to throw in a loneliness theme to tie it all together. I’m so tired of preachy films that feel they have to force-feed their theme by cramming it down the audience’s throat. A good film should be able to tell its story, and let the audience plug in the rest. It’s almost an organic thing when a film develops a strong theme.
The story tells of Gabriel Noone (Williams), a late night story teller for WNYH broadcast radio. While down and out after a recent break-up, a friend gives him a yet-to-be-published book. It’s about the messed up childhood of Pete Lomax (Culkin), a teenage boy who has AIDS. When Lomax contacts Noone, telling him how he’s his biggest fan, they begin a friendship. Finding solace in Lomax, Noone realizes it won’t last forever, because the kid is dying of AIDS. Noone is constantly informed of Lomax’s health by his guardian, Donna (Collette). But as things get deeper Jess (Bobby Cannavale), the ex-boyfriend of Noone, begins to think that it might all be a hoax. This sends Noone to Wisconsin, where Lomax is, in hopes of unraveling the truth.
Another similarity with Freedomland is the mother characters. Both the character of Brenda Martin, played by Julianne Moore in Freedomland, and the character of Donna in The Night Listener are messed up. As each of the films progress, it doesn’t help that the two characters get worse. In this case, Donna seems like a normal person. It is even sympathetic when it’s found out that she is blind, but by the end I hated the character. She needed a Valium, or maybe that was me.
However, Williams is as good as ever. He’s definitely the strongest link in this weak chain of events. It just seems like the film was unsure of where to go. Was it supposed to be a character study, or a thriller? If enough thought provoking time had been given to either one I might have enjoyed things much more.
