The Night Listener

The Night Listener (Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Joe Morton, Sandra Oh, Rory Culkin, Bobby Cannavale) – His popularity centers on his quick-witted, non-stop, instantaneous humor though his greater talent rests with his range and his serious pursuit and delivery of his craft. Robin Williams – Julliard-trained, television-nurtured, comedy-honed – may be the most versatile talent of his generation.  He is certainly the funniest human on earth.  In The Night Listener, Williams returns to his recently preferred genre, the psychological thriller, as a troubled, broken-hearted, man-in-search-of-a-reason-to-live “radio story-teller.” Now devoid of stories, in a sort of writer’s block, he’s handed the story of a dying child.  He makes contact, but is it real?  For as much as he wants to believe the relationship he’s established with the child is real, the trail leads in different and odd directions in a small Wisconsin town.  The performances beyond Williams are strong, too, from the multi-talented, if not particularly attractive, Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, In Her Shoes, About A Boy), and from Bobby Cannavale (The Station Agent).  But the movie belongs to Williams and, while not many people will see this Miramax art-house film, it fits the mature Robin Williams, who did RV for the masses and this one for himself.