‘The Listener’ Review: No Story, No Tension [Tribeca]
Tessa Thompson in The Listener. Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.
Films set in a single location are interesting. A genre in its own right, they become even more claustrophobic when, throughout the entire duration of the movie, only a single actor appears on the screen. This is the case of The Listener, which follows Beth (Tessa Thompson), a volunteer for a phone network that serves as a method of communication of talking and venting for those struggling with their mental health during the pandemic. Not as stressfully confined as this year’s Inside nor as ironically open as Castaway, The Listener seldom breaks the confines of Beth’s living room, only doing so (as seen in the image above) in the film’s third act as a more personal caller seems to break through the shell of the identity she presents when talking to individuals on the phone.
Tessa Thompson in The Listener. Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.
When slightly over an hour into the film, Beth is asked, “Are you a religious person?” the film’s fatal flaw surfaces. The Listener (mostly successfully) argues that a lot of people can be deeply flawed. It does this through a show-don’t-tell approach by using the people Beth talks to, including but not limited to a pervert, an abuse victim, a straight-up asshole, and someone who, as we learn more about them, doesn't actually seem that bad. Though we observe conversations with an entire coterie of people, as The Listener goes on, we realize that there is no real plot here, and the few attempts to create stakes don’t land because of this. This may be because we’re confined in a space where we lack connection and empathy toward most of the characters that we communicate with, or it may be because it feels like writer Alessandro Camron browsed Reddit for a few minutes and crafted the ensemble based on the top posts of the day he could find over the course of a few minutes of scrolling.
The film’s intention is admirable, aiming to give us a look into the extremes that pandemic isolation can bring, and director Steve Buscemi's (the actor known for his roles in numerous Adam Sandler-led films) carefully delicate direction aids this, but it can’t overcome the hurdle of wanting to create a tense, character-driven story without tension or characters we really care about. Thompson, in her biggest leading role to date, is very likable as a person aiming to do what they think is the right thing to do, but can’t escape the fact that this is ultimately a stage play put on the big screen.
Tessa Thompson in The Listener. Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.
As the film continues in an extremely slow-paced manner, we start to think that every few minutes, something big is going to happen. It truly does not matter what that something might be as long as it happens, but it never does. It doesn’t dig particularly deep into many of the topics it hopes to unpack, aside from the final, long conversation with Rebecca Hall’s character that discusses suicide, morality, and meaning as a whole. Had The Listener found more of a precise topic to hone in on, it may have been more successful in trying to say something — doing a single thing well as opposed to doing a lot of things okay. That said, Tessa Thompson does do a good job with the little she’s given to work with, finding the right balance of when the story becomes about her character or when she truly just needs to listen.
The Listener premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 11.
