One of the most important aspects of good mental health is being able to understand yourself and the things that would contribute to your well-being. Some people find difficulty in self-soothing when it comes to things like anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Others find it challenging to speak up even to those close to them because that means there’s a recognition of a problem, and perhaps more frightening, a realization that they can’t face it alone. For those that fall into the latter category, hotlines often serve as a means to release their problems because they can talk through them with a stranger. It’s often unheard of to understand what those on the other end of the call go through, which is why Steve Buscemi’s feature, The Listener, is an interesting watch.
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Tessa Thompson stars as Beth, the helpline volunteer, who fields phone calls every night from those who need help the most. This one-woman show may be thin, but the voice acting and Thompson’s leading performance overcome the limitations of Buscemi’s claustrophobic film. Buscemi, a long-time actor and director with an extensive body of diverse work, is known for his ability to draw empathy out of us for even for the most unlikable characters. In The Listener, this is quite a simple task as the story centers around a young woman whose job it is to listen to the anxious, lonely, and depressed. Beth is on the brink of terminating her position as a volunteer because of the toll that it has taken on her recently. She often converses with those who may want to end their lives and even deals with an occasional creep or two. Either way, the conversations, and the compassion that is demanded of Beth, begin to get the best of her.

This is a film about one simple human emotion: Empathy. Through the various conversations had throughout, we are never privy to the identities of these people. Yet, Alessandro Camon’s script almost requires us to not care. Of course, with never being able to see these characters who call in to the hotline, there’s a disconnect that is only expanded by the actors’ abilities to convey their characters’ emotions. However, they all do an exceptional job delivering their key messages. It is Tessa Thompson who is left with the heavy lifting, as there is never a moment when she is not onscreen. But her ability to command your attention during every second of this intensely emotional script doesn’t go unnoticed.

While limited in how it displays the emotional impact a job like Beth’s can have on a person, the script does highlight one central concept that almost all of us can understand: Human connection. Indeed, Buscemi and company do a stellar job in building off every conversation by amplifying the yearning, desperation, and desires of every subsequent caller. However, there was a missed opportunity to capture Beth’s life outside of her volunteering duties. How does she recalibrate her emotions to be able to take on the next caller? What is Beth’s life like outside of her home, away from all the pent-up emotion? The script doesn’t do well answering these questions, which results in an extremely suffocating watching experience. Even just one break in between the emotionally demanding conversations could’ve helped.

A combination of emotionally exhausting and impressively thin, Buscemi’s latest feature gives us a glimpse of what it must be like to be a listener on a helpline. With great voice acting to support Thompson’s stunning and angelic performance, The Listener, at its best, is a good representation of our human desire to connect with others and be free of any and all negative thoughts. While it doesn’t present empathy in a new light, it adequately reaffirms the power that it can have on the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, it just may take a while for you to believe the emotions behind the voices, because at its worst, it drags.

The Listener was shown at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. The film is 96 minutes long and not rated.