The Night Listener Reviews

It is a rather obscure flick so I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it but since I have a weak spot for Robin Williams , I thought I might as well check it out. Well, eventually, I must admit that I was at first really surprised by the damned thing. Indeed, for most of the movie, I thought it was actually quite spellbinding to behold. Indeed, the performances were really good, especially from Robin Williams who gave here one of his best performances and the story was really impressive (It was in fact based on some true events, apparently). Unfortunately, I thought that this interesting material was rather poorly handled,  the whole thing felt terribly gimmicky and I personally think that the twist didn't work out at all. Indeed, during the beginning of the movie, Pete Logand was played by Rory Culkin but, suddenly, you realize that the boy never existed and was invented by Toni Collette’s character. Sure, you can argue that you actually get to see who Robin Williams was thinking to have on the other line but it just didn’t work for me as this trick was just seriously misguiding in my opinion. Indeed, it’s just too easy to show someone on the screen, then remove him completely and finally claim that the whole thing was so clever in fooling the viewer when, in fact, it was just really weak and lazy. It's too bad because it really had some potential but, in spite of these flaws, I still think it is definitely worth a look though.