Titles at the beginning of The Night Listener, directed by Patrick Stettner, not only acknowledge that the film is based on a novel by Armistead Maupin but also note that the story is based on actual events. When the movie begins, New York City radio announcer Gabriel Noone (played by Robin Williams) is taping a late-night radio program (called Noone at Night) in which he evidently is accustomed to reading short stories. Early in the taping, he quits, psychologically unable to continue. As he leaves the building where the radio station is located, Ashe (played by Joe Morton), his publisher friend, expresses concern that he is five programs behind. He then gives Noone a copy of an autobiographical manuscript that recently arrived, commenting that the story is the most professionally prepared manuscript that he has seen in a year. When Noone arrives home, Jess (played by Bobby Cannavale), his lover of eight years is removing personal effects; as he departs, he reminds Noone that he wants “more space,” thereby explaining why Noone has “reader’s cramp.” Noone then proceeds to read the manuscript, which relays what appears to be a true story about a fourteen-year-old boy, Pete (played by Rory Culkin). Six years earlier, in 1990 according to the manuscript, the boy contracted HIV as a result of sexual abuse by his birthparents; HIV compounded with syphilis then developed into debilitating AIDS. His foster mother, Donna D. Logand (played by Toni Collette), evidently took him to rural Wisconsin to evade Pete’s birthparents and she evidently has been taking Pete to hospitals off and on. Noone becomes so fascinated by the story that he talks to the boy on the phone. Pete evidently is a fan of Noone, a friend who can replace his now estranged lover Jess. However, Jess as well as Noone's accountant, Anna (played by Sandra Oh), believe that Pete is simply Donna with a different voice. Accordingly, Noone decides to dispel the mystery by flying to Wisconsin (the filming is in Montgomery, New York) to investigate. When he arrives, however, he meets the mother, who has the dark glasses of a blind person and a seeing-eye dog, and she is not helpful in his quest to meet her son. Noone’s pursuit becomes obsessive, even involving breaking into the Logand house, followed by a police arrest and later release. Frustrated in his quest, he increasingly begins to doubt whether the boy really exists. Anna then provides some insight. There is a psychological disorder, she says, in which individuals with low self-esteem invent someone imaginary to gain purpose in their lives as well as sympathy from others. But of course that malady describes Noone as well. Some surprises occur toward the end of the film, which plods rather than builds, and titles before credits insult the credulity of filmviewers by providing some information about whether the boy, who would now be twenty-four, is a real person. MH
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