https://blackgirlnerds.com/tribeca-film-festival-2023-the-listener-is-a-touching-rumination-of-modern-anxiety/

The Listener is like going to a spectacular one-act play and being blown away by every moment. 

The film stars Tessa Thompson (Creed) in one of the most touching performances I’ve experienced from this artist. The film is beautifully directed by veteran TV and film actor Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire) and written by Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Alessandro Camon (The Messenger). 

Thompson plays Beth, a volunteer for a telephone mental health support line, who takes calls at home from her laptop and uses a pseudonym to protect her privacy. The film takes place during an evening shift as Beth handles calls from all kinds of lonely, depressed people on the brink of a collapse.

Alessandro Camon’s screenplay is an incredible deep dive into the anxiety and diverse existential crises that are a part of life for so many folks in this post-pandemic society. As Beth encounters each call, we see her navigate the pathways of empathy and compassion through active listening. She never advises or judges, but her soothing voice asks questions and comforts through unconditional compassion. Even through the most challenging callers, Beth listens. 

Tessa Thompson does an incredible job in this role. She is on screen for 96 minutes, the film takes place in one location, her apartment, and the film just flies by. Shot in just six days, Buscemi’s direction and use of camera, lighting, sound, and voiceover editing create a sense of reality and expansiveness that allows the audience to lose themselves in each caller’s story.  

Experiencing The Listener is like being a fly on the wall in Beth’s apartment as she goes through her shift. I love that there is no exact time pattern for each call. Some of the callers are long winded, some ramble on nonstop sentences, and others engage Beth, attempting to find out more about her or get a rise out of her. Each call is like reading a fantastic short story or listening to an engrossing audiobook or podcast play.

The film utilizes music to make the narrative spacious. The original score from Los Angeles-based composer Aska Matsumia (score for After Yang) is stunning. The soundscape of the film takes the audience on a journey through mood. Each caller has a subtly different element of sound or silence that adds texture to the story. Sound design is a character in this film that moves the action forward and draws the audience in. The conversation between Beth and a female college professor with a British accent was a masterpiece. This incredible team showcases the power of listening and how this simple ability is a mental health superpower. The Listener also cleverly infuses visual art into specific scenes, which adds to the richness of storytelling.

I was struck by how simple this film seems on the surface yet how utterly complex, devastating, and ultimately heartwarming and hopeful it ends up being, all with one actor on screen in one location. Tessa Thompson has the chops to add the visual landscape to the audio story we hear from each caller. She couldn’t have done it without a group of incredible actors who I must mention. Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus), Derek Cecil (House of Cards), Margaret Cho (Are You There Go? It’s Me, Margaret), Blu Del Barrio (Star Trek: Discovery), Ricky Velez (The King of Staten Island), Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development), Jamie Hector (Bosch), Casey Wilson (Gone Girl), Bobby Soto (The Tax Collector), and Rebecca Hall (Vicky Christina Barcelona) all deserve their flowers. 

Beth has a dog named Coltrane who is her trusty companion—gotta love the four-footed family representation. The chemistry between Beth and Coltrane works magnificently, and mirrors what so many of us experienced as we worked from home during the pandemic. The story occurs in our present COVID-19 reality but doesn’t beat the audience over the head with the trauma of the past three years of the pandemic. Still, through the look and feel of the film and Thompson’s perfect embodiment of Beth, I immediately knew and could relate to where she was coming from. 

The film is set in Los Angeles, and one of the callers mentions how we all move to cities and live on top of each other only to be the most lonely generation. We have all of this technology to connect, yet so many feel they have no choice but to call a crisis helpline for support because they have no one to listen when they can’t sleep in the middle of the night.

Screenwriter Alessandro Camon has a degree in philosophy and has put it to use in crafting this script. The writing is sublime, and I love the deep conversations about the universe, consciousness, the nature of existence, and the human experience woven through the narrative. The use of language and storytelling in the film paint vibrant images in the imagination. One of the callers muses, “I don’t have an urge to kill myself, I’m just looking at it objectively.”  Another simply states, “Loneliness is a big slut.”

Buscemi’s direction and Thompson’s skilled and subtle acting choices give us a Beth who is not a “magical Negro” or any other stereotypical trope we often see when Black women are placed in roles like this traditionally in cinema. Beth isn’t just a vessel for others to gain wisdom from. We see the toll that listening to the trauma of others all night takes on her, we learn why she is compelled to do this work,  and we see how Beth nourishes herself as she helps others.  

In a world filled with self-centered people, people who volunteer to help others can be easily perceived to be saints with higher levels of consciousness to be revered. But in reality, nobody, including Beth, does anything for anyone else without having a personal agenda. I love how this film models a strategy so many folks use to find peace of mind in a world filled with chaos. The Listener is a beautifully complex and elegantly relatable film with an open heart that models the power of empathy and leaves the audience with a sense of hope.

The Listener premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in June 2023.