"The Night Listener" - Robin Williams
 

I just watched this Hitchcockian thriller on DVD and I liked it. It's a supremely suspenseful film that got me glued to the set for its short duration. The situation is unusual and the characters are very unexpected. But it all seems all too believable. The story was inspired by a real-life mystery that affected the lives of writers Armistead Maupin and Terry Anderson some fifteen years ago, that Maupin turned into a novel in 2000 and which was subsequently investigated by a New Yorker journalist a few years later. Suffice it to say that the mystery remains whole to this day...

I found this film more creepy than a dozen recent gore-fests. I also like the fact that Robin Williams is taking chances by trying new things and lending his name to quirky, indie projects that would never get done without his help.

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Glad to hear the good word. I plan on renting this soon.

It was very well made, and really reminded me of a hitchcock movie. But honestly, you could easily compare it to

This was a taut, extremely well directed and acted thriller. Had me on the edge of my seat up until the end. It not only reminded me of "Misery" in it's atmosphere, but also "Insomnia" and "Jennifer 8". I immediately went on rottentomatoes to read some of the reviews and have to agree with those who said it was a great build up to a fairly "ho hum/yeah so what" type ending. But truth be told, I'll take that over a typical Hollywood ending.

It also says interesting things about our "need to know" versus our "need to believe" and the interaction between the two motivations.

I was thinking about adding this to my Blockbuster queue. It has to be better than the one with Williams cutting up dead people's memories to make DVDs.

The DVD has one 3-minute deleted scene that shows how close the director and the writers came to ruining the suspense and robbing the film of its tension and atmosphere towards the end. A very useful lesson in filmmaking.

Definitely worth seeing - and Toni Colette gives an award-worthy performance.

The thing that suprised me about her performance is that you rarely see a "Hollywood actress" willing to make herself so . Robin Williams should also be commanded for toning down his personality to the point where I wasn't reminded that I was watching Robin Williams. I saw only a character struggling with real-life problems I actually wanted to know more about.

Also please compare the ending of this film to the usual Shamalayan flim-flammery. This film has the ring of truth to it.

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Loved her peformance. As Baracine said, Williams performance was a pleasant surprise. There was no hint, or at least very little of the usual manic/zany Williams that we're all used to seeing.

Overall a very good movie.