The Listener – first-look review | Little White Lies

Festivals

The Lis­ten­er – first-look review

09 Sep 2022

Words by Hannah Strong

A person lying on a dark surface, eyes closed, with a blue cloth covering them.
A person lying on a dark surface, eyes closed, with a blue cloth covering them.
Tes­sa Thomp­son plays a helpline vol­un­teer on her final shift in Steve Buscemi’s sen­si­tive drama.

Beth (Tes­sa Thomp­son) is good at lis­ten­ing. In fact, she’s paid to do it – she works the night shift at a helpline, and takes calls from strangers on all man­ner of top­ics, from an ex-con­vict try­ing to get his life back on track to a teenage run­away with a vio­lent boyfriend. She’s heard it all from the sanc­ti­ty of her Los Ange­les apart­ment, where she sits with her dog patient­ly lis­ten­ing as oth­ers offload their deep­est fears, irri­ta­tions and anx­i­ties to her. It’s a job that might ini­tial­ly appear unde­mand­ing, but the emo­tion­al toll on Beth becomes clear through­out the slen­der run­time of Steve Buscemi’s fifth fea­ture as direc­tor – although she tries to main­tain a dis­tance from the peo­ple she assists, it’s dif­fi­cult to remain detached con­sid­er­ing the seri­ous­ness of some of the con­ver­sa­tions she has.

We join Beth on her final shift, at least for a lit­tle while. We nev­er quite find out what has led her to quit, but it could be exhaus­tion – even over the course of one night we get a sense for the emo­tion­al toll of answer­ing the phone and help­ing strangers through what could be the worst night of their lives. Beth remains most­ly in her apart­ment, mov­ing slow­ly from room to room, occa­sion­a­lyl paus­ing for a snack or to doo­dle in a sketch­book. Some­times she offers her clients advice, but most­ly Beth is just there to help peo­ple talk through what­ev­er is on their minds – a role she seems to excel at.

The Lis­ten­er rests on the strength of Tes­sa Thompson’s per­for­mance, which is far more inter­est­ing than any­thing her recur­ring role in the MCU has asked of her. It’s not an easy role, giv­en that so much of the per­for­man­cr revolves around react­ing to phone con­ver­sa­tions, but Thomp­son man­ages to embue Beth with warmth and charis­ma. We learn more about her life through­out the film, small details dripfed in the con­ver­sa­tions she shares with oth­ers, and though we nev­er gain a full under­stand­ing of her life, there’s cer­tain­ly enough to appre­ci­ate why she has tak­en on a job where the rewards are not always felt.

Even with a fair­ly slight 96 minute run­time though, The Lis­ten­er does drag slight­ly. Through­out her shift Beth fields mul­ti­ple calls and some are more com­pelling than oth­ers. The stand­out is a con­ver­sa­tion between her and an ex-aca­d­e­m­ic (voiced by Rebec­ca Hall) who is on the verge of end­ing her life – over the course of their con­ver­sa­tion, Beth is required to open up a lit­tle more, but ulti­mate­ly finds the exchange grat­i­fy­ing as they dis­cuss mor­tal­i­ty and the idea of keep­ing on going in an increas­ing­ly hos­tile world. It’s a mod­est film, both in scale – the restraints of film­ing dur­ing Covid do feel appar­ent – and sto­ry, but that’s no bad thing. Lone­li­ness is a feel­ing famil­iar to vir­tu­al­ly every one of us, and here it is treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and com­pas­sion, des­tig­ma­tis­ing the idea of reach­ing out to oth­ers in search of help, and serv­ing as a reminder than no man (or woman) is an island.

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