The Listener 2024 Movie Review Trailer

 Because many people spent much more time alone at home during the coronavirus pandemic, demand for telephone counseling services also increased enormously. The ability to simply talk to someone and escape loneliness, at least temporarily, was in greater demand than ever.

 This is also the starting point for “The Listener,” actor Steve Buscemi (“Reservoir Dogs”)’s first directorial effort in 15 years. The price charged to everyone available to listen also plays an important role when the main character, who calls herself, says early on that she will soon be leaving the job, at least temporarily.

Director: Steve Buscemi

Writer: Alessandro Camon

Stars: Derek Cecil, Margaret Cho, Blu del Barrio

In “The Listener” this problem is cleverly avoided by having Beth work from home and wander around her apartment first in her nightgown and then in a jogger, sometimes walking out the door or drawing little drawings casually related to the current conversation.

 Buscemi strongly stages his leading actress in space. Anka Malatynska's (“Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin”) camera gets very close to her, but immediately locates her in her room from afar. Our eyes are casually drawn to small things: the cigarettes Beth lets disappear into the drawer or the stress ball she manipulates violently.

The production maintains interest, but thanks to the very calm camera work it is also so reserved that it never draws attention to itself. Like Tessa Thompson as Beth, we should also become listeners and be particularly interested in the stories presented by a well-known cast (including Logan Marshall-Green, Margaret Cho and even Steve Buscemi himself in a mini cameo). The audience is supposed to feel for themselves the helplessness that Thompson conveys through her facial expressions in some situations due to the overwhelming problems of the person she calls...

…but that's exactly what doesn't work. In the end, stories rarely manage to move you because they simply don't seem authentic enough. The fact that the selection of issues – from woman-hating incels to racism in policing and the American healthcare system – was chosen based on a daily set of issues is not even the problem.

 Rather, it is the fluid dialogue of the script by Italian Alessandro Camon (“Shootout”), nominated for an Oscar for his work on the screenplay of “The Messenger”: the characters express themselves with such clarity and determination, that it almost always sounds as if was written instead of spoken.

Whether Beth is talking to a teenager who has been living on the streets for years, an unemployed ex-con, or a teacher: almost all of the characters get to the point so quickly and well that after a brief conversation you can guess what they are about. treats. is going to be discussed. 

When Beth has to snoop around a little, it seems forced and is quickly resolved anyway. This means that interest in almost every conversation wanes as it progresses because it's clear where things are going anyway. Too often there is a hope that the next conversation will begin soon.

With its quiet production and the great Tessa Thompson, “The Listener” is actually a film that invites you to listen, but rarely offers authentic moments in the stories presented.

Watch The Listener 2024 Movie Trailer