Night Listener

The Night Listener, based on an incident in the life of gay writer Armistead Maupin that Maupin himself turned into a novel, may be a case of life being stranger than fiction. In this case, critics seem to suggest, it may be too strange. It tells about a writer's telephone conversations with a woman who pretended to be an abused boy who contracted AIDS when he was sold for sex. A.O. Scott in the New York Times suggests that the film, which stars Robin Williams and Toni Collette, raises several questions: "Why would anyone make up such horrible stories? Why would anyone believe -- or, for that matter, doubt -- them? Those questions hover in the background of this film, which scratches its head and shrugs them off." Similarly Chris Kaltenbach writes in the Baltimore Sun: "One leaves this film with little notion of what it was trying to do, much less of what it was trying to say." The film has a handful of supporters, including Claudia Puig, who concludes her review in USA Today by writing: "This unconventional psychological drama weaves a fascinating tale, and Collette and Williams give two of the summer's best performances."