"The Night Listener" -- unboxed spoilers!!

Cafe Society
1

I saw this tonight; I knew absolutely nothing about it, but I was looking for some kind of suspense/thriller, and the poster looked like it fit the bill, so I decided to give it a shot.

Definitely NOT the movie I expected to see! It’s not a thriller at all, in any real sense. A couple thoughts:

  1. Robin William’s relationship with the kid made me a bit uncomfortable. Why does this 50-something man immediately develop such an intense relationship with this 14-year old kid so quickly? And then to start sending porn to a kid who has just been horribly abused and exploited by pornography? To a minor you’ve never met? That sets off alarm bells.

  2. It seemed extremely clear to me by the end of the movie that the kid did not exist. The mother had lied about being blind, was clearly lying about the whereabouts of the kid, and it was clearly her voice in the last phone conversation with Robin Williams. But my movie-going companion disagreed, and thought it was still a possibility the kid was real. Your thoughts?

Overall it was an interesting and entertaining movie, though it propelled more by the weirdness and unexpectedness of its plot than by great movie-making.

2

The big question in my mind is: who was the boy (played by actor Rory Culkin) who was seen (by the audience) talking on the phone and seen by Robin Williams’ character on the videotape?

3

I haven’t seen the movie. So no input there.

Maupin’s novel, that I did read.

If they actually show a boy, that kinda negates the whole idea.

I can’t decide whether to see it or not. (oh I prolly will.)

4

I only knew about it from one of those evening news magazine shows, in which they explored the very real possibility that the boy was never seen or allowed to be seen because his foster mother was the one impersonating him on the phone all the time.

Very freaky.