The Night Listener 2006

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: File The Night Listener under Missed Opportunities. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The pacing and staging of the later scenes could use a little more electricity and momentum, and a little less restraint. Yet The Night Listener keeps you watching. And listening. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: A creepy head-scratcher more atmospheric than believable. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: It's a relief to see Williams underplaying for a change and letting us fill in the blanks, but the movie's suggestiveness gives way to a certain thinness and lassitude. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: A quietly disturbing and effectively haunting little gem. Read more

Jim Ridley, Village Voice: As a consideration of the power of storytelling -- and the urge to mythologize one's own life as well as the lives of others -- The Night Listener could serve as creepy paranoid cousin to the current Lady in the Water. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Ultimately, the film veers off-course into pure melodrama and a trickled-out ending that apparently was also a problem in Maupin's book. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Williams delivers a solid, twinkle-free (though closed-off) performance, but the film as a whole can't decide what it wants to be. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: The movie might make for a good book, but it's too awkward and lacks the necessary action for a film. And Williams' rather sluggish approach doesn't help much. Eventually, we just aren't interested in tagging along with him. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Adapted from Armistead Maupin's highly anticipated, woefully executed 2000 novel, this is surely among the best bad movies of the year. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: More intriguing than enthralling, more creepy than disturbing, The Night Listener runs a tidy 80 minutes yet still feels stretched. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Something happens to Robin Williams in serious roles. He becomes so drab that it's almost as if he's trying to efface himself from the screen. Read more

Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly: ... the movie doesn't cohere. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Director Patrick Stettner -- seems unable to settle on what The Night Listener actually wants to say. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: The story, effective in print, doesn't survive onscreen scrutiny. You'll feel detached and, even with its brief 82-minute running time, you'll get impatient. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: To me, the movie is of interest only for its embrace -- of the eternal ambivalence with which writers tap the lives of people they know and/or love for their work. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: There's so much menace and portent in this adaptation of Armistead Maupin's novel that you're psyched for a high-voltage compound of shock and awe that never materializes. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: The thriller is suspenseful enough, with a spooky mood and some real shocker moments, but the audience has to be willing to forgive its lack of rationality, as well as its totally cryptic conclusion. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR.org: Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Noone [Williams] is a lethargic, beaten, humorless man, and the film is plugged into the same lifeless energy source. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Night Listener draws you in to a tale well-told. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: An eerie, occasionally disturbing motion picture focused on the differences between perception and reality. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: This thriller about books, belief and betrayal covers topical terrain -- JT LeRoy and James Frey, anyone? -- but itself proves unbelievable. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The Night Listener, a movie with lots of heart but no heartbeat. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: Williams' solemn one-note performance, which we've seen variations of before in his 'serious films,' Insomnia and Good Will Hunting, ruins what should be a ghoulishly entertaining game of cat and mouse. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: There's more to this story than meets the eye -- or ear -- especially when Collette, magnetic in her intensity, appears as a figure straight out of Vertigo or North by Northwest. Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: The plot dawdles along, intrigue gives way to risible melodrama, and [director] Patrick Stettner fails to get to grips with the issues. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Ultimately, The Night Listener is more admirable for what it tries to be than for what it actually achieves. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The Night Listener reveals itself in a grippingly quiet and enigmatic style reminiscent of Hitchcock. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Aiming to blur the distinctions between truth and illusion, it simply blurs its own effectiveness by relying on predictable and not particularly convincing mystery-thriller formula. Read more