The Night Listener

This is a story written by Armistead Maupin, most famous as the author of the Tales in the City stories, and based on a real life experience of his. It is a thriller so it's very unlike his signature piece.

The film stars Robin Williams as a radio talk show monologuist Gabriel who spins stories about his life, usually embellishing them, although he claims to his audience they are facts. The film has a dark and somewhat bleak tone and Gabriel's voice reflects this.  His lover Jess (Bobby Cannavale) can no longer take Gabriel's behavior in their relationship, i.e. always on the lookout for something about the couple to spin into a story for his show. Jess feels this is becoming more intrusive, and feels Gabriel is not committed to the relationship for the right reasons.  Jess leaves just when another friend (Joe Morton) gives him an amateur memoir written by a teen fan of his radio show named Pete (Rory Culkin). Pete's memoir talks about his troubled life of having been sexually abused by his parents and other personal tragedies. Gabriel is moved by his story and starts a telelphone friendship with Pete and eventually his foster mother Donna (Toni Collette).

After a telephone encounter, someone suggests they are the same person. Gabriel is not convinced this but when he tells his secretary (Sandra Oh), she puts more doubts in his head. A couple of instances where face-to-face meetings with Pete fall through makes Gabriel more suspicious than he wants to be, leading him to try to find Pete, and Donna, to prove to himself they both exist.


There is suspense as Gabriel is led astray by a red herring or two (or are they?) and Pete/Donna continue to brush him off in ways that can taken to be innocent or suspicious.  He does meet Donna and although at first she seems sincere, her own personal life appears to be one of troubling sacrifice as well.  There are signs that "Pete" may exist, but are they Donna's manifestations?  Does she have a multiple personality?  Munchausen syndrome?  Or perhaps she is just an overprotective mother.  Many elements in the story can point to any of these answers.

This was an interesting story although I would have preferred the ending to be ambiguous rather than definitively showing to us if the persona of Pete was real or not.  Each of the supporting characters had a certain role to play to introduce Pete and Donna and then to compel Gabriel to make his search.