| Gay & Lesbian Movies: The Night Listener
The Night Listener is a psychological thriller based on the
international bestselling novel by Armistead Maupin. The
story revolves around a celebrated writer and popular late-night
radio show host, Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams), who
develops an intense phone relationship with a young listener
named Pete (Rory Culkin) and his adopted mother (Toni
Collette) just as his own domestic life is undergoing
drastic changes. When troubling questions arise regarding the
boy's identity, it causes Gabriel's ordered existence to spin
wildly out of control as he sets out on a harrowing journey to
find the truth.
Armistead Maupin, author of The Night Listener himself called
the novel "a thriller of the heart," and admitted that it was
partially auto-biographical – largely inspired by an
extraordinary, unsettling true-life chain of events that
actually happened to Maupin and his ex-partner, Terry
Anderson, back in 1992. It was then that Maupin was sent a
manuscript by a 14 year-old boy who claimed to have survived
shocking physical and sexual abuse as a child, and had just
penned a heartfelt memoir as a way of healing from his
nightmare.
Maupin was so taken by the boy's tale of endurance, he wanted to
speak directly with him – and so began an extended long-distance
phone friendship with this remarkably wise child and his very
protective, adopted mother. Yet one day, after months of
camaraderie, Terry Anderson pointed out to Maupin that the boy's
voice and his mother's voice were disturbingly similar.
Realizing Anderson was right, Maupin began to doubt the boy's
very existence.
Director: Patrick Stettner
Cast: Robin Williams, Rory Culkin, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh, Bobby
Cannavale
Where to find out more:
thenightlistener-movie.com
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