Steve Buscemi’s “The Listener” gives off a sustained impression of being a pandemic film. Most of it unfolds within the confines of an apartment. The action is contained within a tight space while the protagonist strives to connect with strangers through conversations on the phone. The spatial limitation works to heighten the intensity of the viewer’s experience, which is guided mostly by the lead actor’s responses to the disconcerting variety of callers.
Beth’s (Tessa Thompson) job requires her to tackle emotionally tiring situations with just the sheer force of conversation. She manages a helpline, mostly doing night shifts. She has been doing this for a few years. The calls have drastically increased with the onset of the pandemic. We are never told about the specifics of the helpline. The callers range across a vast spectrum, which provokes curiosity furthermore. They are dramatically different from each other, offering unique sets of problems to Beth.
The issues span a wide gamut, from war trauma to intimate partner concerns to bipolar angst. Inevitably, there are also the ‘strokers,’ as she likes to call them, men who start out seeking from her a boost in their self-esteem that has been crushed by female rejection. Thompson superbly evokes the equipoise her character is compelled to channel while suppressing the urge to lash out.
Since she cannot physically be with the callers, Beth has to soothe and talk them out of the volcanic circumstance in which they are contacting her. It’s immensely stressful work, but she cannot let any of it get to her. Even as the contents of a call get increasingly somber, she has to hone a detachment so that she can effectively pick herself up and move on to the next one at any given moment. The nature of the job demands quickness in both how she must ease herself into a tough conversation with a completely disembodied stranger and wrench herself out of it, often without a cue. She has to ensure she is gentle in her probing and her empathy clear and solid. The work is inherently loaded and can drain anyone who is tasked with it.
The camera traverses the escalating strain that passes over Beth’s face as she tries to rein herself in. The entire film rests on Thompson’s receptiveness. It is a subtle miracle of a performance, patiently mapping out all the weariness, anger, and unease her character has to battle, along with the calm reassurance she has to provide. It is a tricky balancing act that the actress pulls off with remarkable control and unshowy elegance.
Though Alessandro Camon’s screenplay gives her a few shreds of a difficult backstory only in the third act, Thompson is utterly riveting, carrying the whole film with an unflinching inner strength that quietly shines through. The film frequently veers close to stretching and testing the viewer’s devoted attention. Especially in a film of this sort, the writing and the performances have to be sharply realized and compulsively immersive.
While most of the voice acting keeps us rooted, the one who makes the most biting impression is Rebecca Hall as Laura, a disgruntled sociology professor who has just been fired from the job and is also undergoing a divorce. It is fitting that Hall gets to play the character who challenges Beth as she weaponizes her smartness and dares the ‘helper’ with dollops of sly condescension.
Laura anticipates Beth’s arguments, bringing to the fore a broader, theoretical underpinning. It is almost as if she is examining Beth’s capability at her job. When she inquires if Beth has the appropriate lived experience for handling her job with the necessary skill, Beth struggles to hide her flabbergasting expression when she is put into the seat of the interrogator.
While “The Listener” has a smooth intelligence to it, there are moments when the subdued tone that gradually builds along with Beth’s attempts to keep herself shielded from being too emotionally affected tend to peter out in their repetitive monotony. Of course, it is clearly intended to mirror the rhythms of the job, yet the deliberate distance placed between us and Beth’s past occasionally chips away at the degree of our interest in how she is actually maneuvering the conversations to a space of safety, comfort, and temporary stability. However, Thompson’s finely nuanced performance manages to arrest our occasionally wavering attention with a stunning mix of guardedness, openness, and hints of a tender, sad loneliness.
