The Night Listener
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Actor: Bobby Cannavale, Joe Morton, Robin Williams, Rory Culkin, Toni ColletteBrand: Buena Vista Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
Published: 2007-01-01
DVD Release Date: 2007-01-09
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Miramax
DVD Reviews of The Night Listener
DVD Review: "Listen for the truth ... "
Summary: 2 Stars
THE NIGHT LISTENER (2006) was one of the weirdest, creepiest films I could ever recall watching. In brief, Robin Williams plays New York DJ Gabriel Noone ("no one", get it?), a gay, washed-up radio personality who starts getting calls from a fan in Wisconsin: an adolescent boy (Rory Culkin). This boy, who is questioning his own sexuality, seems to become more and more obsessed with the DJ. The DJ is affected by the apparent plight of this kid, and agrees to try to meet him.
I haven't seen this film since it was new, and I do not recall any plotline of the boy writing his memoires, as has been stated - but I could be mistaken. I simply do not recall that being a part of this film. It would never have fit anyway ....
Noone arrives in Wisconsin and is confronted by Donna Logand (Toni Collette) - a very crazy blind woman, who is either the boy's mother or adopted mother. The question right off the bat is, how batty is she, and is she really blind? She leads the DJ round by the nose. Where is her son? - the DJ was supposed to meet him. Oh, he's in the hospital, he's very ill, could he give the woman a ride? - and round and round it all goes.
Soon the DJ is haunted by two possibilities: this crazy woman is not the boy's real mother, has him imprisoned somewhere, or worse, there is no boy and the puppetmaster behind it all has been he crazy woman all along. Soon the unfortunate Noone will find himself investigating this silliness and getting pounded by the cops in the process.
I have to say, I was deeply angered because there is a boy in the beginning of the film (Culkin, but why show him?). He does make the call to the DJ, he sounds real enough - but by the end of the 1st quarter, this kid sounds like Toni Collette doing a weird impersonation of a boy. After the initial "bait" is set for the poor DJ, the boy vanishes. Was any boy ever there at all?
The ending is as stupid as the beginning, but in order to get there, be advised that Robin Williams suffers some catastrophic and ugly scenarios. Somehow the crazy woman has convinced everyone else that her son has been kidnapped ... and it looks like the DJ did it. Did he? Is he some weirdo, who has the boy hidden someplace? The whole town thinks ... well, maybe he could be the bad guy ... but the DJ himself investigates and gets everyone to admit that they have never actually seen this boy. AHA! So why would a woman lie about having a son she doesn't really have?
The circular story is too goofy to be drunk in, too unintentionally funny to work on any level. The casting of Williams is one of his bigger casting errors, because he lends a humorous air to whatever he does (witness ONE HOUR PHOTO, AUGUST RUSH or the Canadian disaster THE FINAL CUT, which I think was his attempt to return after nearly drinking himself to death). But Williams managed to make some sort of impression here.
Written by Armistead Maupin, directed by small-fry Patrick Stettner, this thing is a 100% JUST-GIVE-IT-A-MISS unless you're hardcore for Williams, Collette or anything remotely gay-like.
However, you must read for yourself the allegedly true story behind this mess, which I gleaned from a Hollyweird website:
" ... in 1993 Maupin was sent the galleys of a book by a publisher in New York, written by a 14-year-old boy who was dying of AIDS and had suffered abuse at the hands of his parents, who had been in sort of a pedophile ring, and he had been rescued by a social worker. I was asked to write a blurb. [At the beginning of the film there's that line: `Don't worry. You won't have to write a blurb.']
"That book was Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story, the poignant, horrific and supposedly true memoir of 'Anthony Godby Johnson'. The book came with a forward from Los Angeles author Paul Monette [a great favorite of mine], another renowned essayist on gay relationships and a friend of Maupin's who was dying of AIDS. Monette had been contacted by Johnson (who himself was expected to die of AIDS within six months), and was coaxed into providing the forward, as had another even more famous personality. Maupin said the story 'came with pretty impeccable credentials.'
"As a result both Paul Monette and Fred Rogers had established warm, long-distance relationships with the terminally ill but life-loving boy, who lived with an adoptive guardian in Union City, New Jersey, in a highly secretive arrangement for fear that his abusive parents or their sick sexual circle might hunt him down. Maupin was thunderstruck by Tony Johnson's story, and immediately provided a cover blurb, but found himself wanting to do more.
"With Toni's 'adoptive mother' Vicki Fraginals serving as go-between, Maupin and the boy developed a deep connection through their frequent phone conversations over the ensuing months, though Tony was always too sick [he had AIDS, remember] for a one-on-one meeting. Maupin was blissfully ignorant that there might be something entirely more outlandish going on until one fateful telephone call. "
-thanks to the site which I cannot reveal on Amazon.
So, that fateful day, Maupin's boyfriend took a call from the boy's mother Vicki, and after ten minutes concluded that it was the exact same voice as the boy's. He chided Maupin for not having noticed it before. Maupin decided to play along for SIX YEARS, all the while fighting internally about whether this boy was a real person or not. Maupin learned through an exposé by "The New Yorker" magazine that there was no boy - the voiceprints were one woman's only. But the "boy" - by phone, of course - even appeared with Maupin on an episode of "Oprah Winfrey" about abused children.
The woman, Vicki, suffers from what is known as "Factitious Disorder", a sort of compulsive lying with the telling of complex, deeply anchored tall tales. Maupin published "The Night Listener" in 2000, after a threat from the woman about having to get a lawyer ... and it was the last time Maupin spoke with her (or her fake son). When the film was in production, Collette nixed the idea of talking with Vicki. She isn't quite that 'method', and felt Maupin could guide her well enough.
Sadly, she presents the Vicki-character as potentially violent and psychopathic. It doesn't seem the real Vicki was as bad as all that. Who knows, and who cares? Maupin himself says that to this day, people believe in "Tony", in his existence, and there are even those who speak to or email "Tony" regularly. "Tony", of course, is Vicki and she is still conning people ....
Williams himself judged the real-life Vicki to be a sort of extreme voyeur, and even some vicarious living-by-proxy. "Munchausen by ventriloquism" is what Williams called Vicky's little game. Both Williams and Toni Collette received chilling fan letters from Vicki when the film was being made. She asked Collette to do her justice in the film.
Trouble I had with this all along is: how true is any of this? How devious is Maupin? Did HE create it all, in order to get work? Did he need to, or did Monette? Why did Fred Rogers - yes, THE "Mr. Rogers" - write the Afterward to "Tony's memoires", while Monette wrote the Foreword? In the end, both book and film will convince you that truth is not a commodity: it is an obligation. But you don't need this dreadful film (or the rotten novel behind it) in order to learn that lesson.
Description of The Night Listener
Academy Award(R) winner Robin Williams (Best Supporting Actor, GOOD WILL HUNTING, 1997; ONE HOUR PHOTO, INSOMNIA) is unforgettable in a riveting, critically acclaimed psychological thriller based on true events! Gabriel Noone (Williams), a celebrated writer and late-night talk show host, becomes captivated by the harrowing story of a young listener and his adoptive mother (Toni Collette ? LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, IN HER SHOES). When troubling questions arise about the boy?s identity, however, Noone finds himself drawn into a widening mystery that hides a deadly secret! Also starring Sandra Oh (SIDEWAYS, TV?s GREY'S ANATOMY) and based on the best-selling novel by Armistead Maupin, THE NIGHT LISTENER delivers unpredictable twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat!Bestsellers in DVD
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