Night Listener (2006)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Film: C

 

 

The serious Robin Williams films of recent years have been more miss than hit.  Good Will Hunting, One Hour Photo and remake of Insomnia worked well, but others have been a mess.  Add Patrick Steiner’s awkward adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s The Night Listener (2006, which the two co-wrote the screenplay with Terry Anderson of) and you get a film that just never adds up.

 

Williams is a talk show host who happens to be gay, is about to watch his relationship end and is so tired of his job that he is about to let himself get fired.  He is also a successful writer, which inspires an adoptive mother (Toni Collette) to approach him about a book her adoptive son wrote about his sexually exploitive and abusive parents.  However, when Gabriel (Williams) tries to confirm this in any way, problems occur.

 

Suddenly, he wonders if the book is true, if the boy is still in trouble or who is the boy, if he even exists.  There are some strange phone calls from him, but even they are suspicious.

 

Unfortunately, the whole film is problematic, even if it is based on some true events.  To be blunt, what is going wrong is obvious early on and the reaction of the Williams character is very oddball.  Fro a writer of his supposed savvy, he should have figured out early on something was wrong and that this critic guessed so early is why this film is such a bomb.  The only question is, does it trivialize the darkest events here?

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 x 1 image was shot by Lisa Rinzer (Menace II Society) and is not a bad shoot, but this transfer still has detail and color can be subdued.  Video Black is also lacking, but this is at least watchable.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix has limited surrounds, limited to ambience and some music, but this is mostly a dialogue-based work.  The combination is passable, but not spectacular.  Extras include featurette and deleted scene of no consequence.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo