Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams), the main character of Patrick Stettner's ""The Night Listener,"" hosts a popular nationally-syndicated radio program. His life is falling apart. He is depressed, having gone through a messy separation with his long-time partner, and writer's block has left him unable to broadcast.
In his despair, he receives a phone call from Pete (Rory Culkin), the adolescent author of a soon-to-be-published memoir of child sexual abuse. In their mutual hurt, they forge a connection. But Gabe becomes convinced the boy does not exist; Pete's and his stepmother Donna's (Toni Collette's) voices sound too similar, and the publishers of Pete's memoir have never met him either. Obsessed, Gabe travels from New York to Michigan to discover the truth. Attempting to vindicate himself for suspecting conspiracy, he discredits himself almost beyond repair.
The opening credits of ""The Night Listener"" play over kaleidoscopic images, and indeed the film takes place in a distorted reality. Gabe is recounting his experience to radio listeners, and one can assume he presents a tweaked version of events. The final ""explanation"" given seems arbitrary, but of course it is: It's a good conclusion for Gabe's radio program and allows him to move on emotionally. Without this vantage point, it would be easy to discuss ""The Night Listener"" in terms of plot loopholes and inconsistencies, but within them the film works.
Robin Williams' performance as Gabe strikes the perfect note for the material. It should not be compared to his other darker work in ""One Hour Photo"" and ""Insomnia."" In each of those films he played (rather unconvincingly) a straight-up villain. Here he is not a villain in any standard sense—even when arrested by police for breaking into Donna's and Pete's house, his obsessed actions can be sympathized with. Gabe is one of the most complex characters Williams has ever played, and this performance is his best in years. There's a subtle, sneaky power to it. Audiences almost never remember character names, especially when a major celebrity is the actor, but they might remember Gabriel Noone.
Toni Collette is also remarkable as Donna. Her character is blind, and Collette captures her condition with expert precision. Her anguish at Gabe's intrusion into her life seems so real it is difficult to entertain the notion that she is a liar and fraud. Yet as convincing as she is, the screenplay keeps this possibility dangling over audiences' heads constantly. Still, the film is not about Donna (or the possibly fabricated Pete). They are characters in Gabe's odyssey, and ""The Night Listener"" is about him.
Gabe does not understand himself; on his radio show, he merely pretends to. The audience is not permitted to understand him either. He is a character, like Jimmy Stewart in ""Vertigo,"" whose true motivations probably lie beneath the surface of the screenplay. The writers do not want or need to explain Gabe, though. The greatest films rarely require complete resolution. In fact, the similarities to ""Vertigo"" are too widespread to be coincidental. It's not nearly as good, of course; few films since have been. At a taut 82 minutes, ""The Night Listener"" is like Hitchcock's film minus a third act. But those are two fantastic acts.
