The Listener

It's sensitive, subtle, and restrained, and asks more of the audience than it's typically willing to give.

There’s a lot to like about The Listener, with Thompson’s performance easily being the highlight. It’s a simple yet powerful story of finding connection and hope through the dark times.

For their part, Buscemi and Thompson utilize the complementary power of stillness and the close-up to create a portrait of a woman who hears so much and divulges so little.

The cumulative stress of the pandemic is everywhere, as pervasive and ubiquitous as the omicron variant. Beth’s lonely home-working set-up; the eerie quiet in the predawn hours; the brittle desperation in the callers’ voices; the sheer volume of cries for help: it all captures the sense of teetering on the brink, the uncertainty, the unfamiliar anxieties of the first lockdown.

The whole collaboration feels undeniably stagey, but it’s still an empathic and frequently moving work that touches on the sheer volume of callers that workers like Thompson’s character, often unpaid volunteers, must contend with every day.

Tessa Thompson answering phone calls is not enough to justify a feature-length film. A short film absolutely would have knocked this out of the park, but there is just nothing holding your attention here.

Though the global pandemic is only incidentally mentioned, The Listener plays in all aspects like a project conceived in the most self-searching and self-indulgent depths of the isolation era.