Review of The Night Listener (2006) by Your Friend — 30 Sep 2008

Mr. Williams, in one of his blessedly shtick-free performances, effectively conveys Gabriel?s weary, worried stoicism, but the movie limits his character to a few easy, literal motivations. A scene with Gabriel?s bluff, Southern father (John Cullum) is intriguing without being especially illuminating, and Mr. Cannavale?s character seems more functional than real.

We understand that Gabriel, who nursed Jess through a period of life-threatening illness, needs someone to protect and care for, and that Pete represents a beguiling mixture of toughness and innocence, but the psychological and intellectual implications that hover over the story are lost in the spooky atmospherics and overshadowed by Ms. Collette?s off-kilter showboating.

The story told in ?The Night Listener? resonates uncannily with the curious case of J. T. Leroy, whose literary renderings of a blighted childhood were recently revealed as a hoax. Clearly, there is something about tales of violated innocence, the more extreme the better, that invites credulity. Why would anyone make up such horrible stories? Why would anyone believe ? or, for that matter, doubt ? them? Those questions hover in the background of this film, which scratches its head and shrugs them off.