Director: Mandla Dube
Writers: Deon Meyer, Willem Grobler
Stars: Bonko Khoza, Connie Ferguson, Masasa Mbangeni

Synopsis: A retired assassin is pulled back into action when his friend uncovers a dangerous conspiracy at the heart of the South African government.

I wouldn’t say most streaming movies are bad. In fact, I would say most films, including big theatrical ones, are not very good. However, what I will say about Netflix is that they offer what most socially conscious film critics tend to whine and cry about not having enough of, yet ignore what the streaming giant offers the most: unique perspectives of genre films from across the world. Case in point: take the South African action picture Heart of the Hunter,  a smart and handsomely crafted political spy thriller that entertains and has something to say in the process. 

Heart of the Hunter’s story follows Zuko Khumalo (The Woman King’s Bonko Khoza), a family man with a dark past searching for redemption. The script by Deon Meyer (Hunting Emma) and Willem Grobler (Hum) layers in compelling moments from Zuko’s backstory that give the viewer added weight to care about the outcomes. For example, we learn why Zuko attempted to walk from his calling as a once-feared assassin—he killed a political target in front of their son and the guilt that comes with it. 

Has Zuko found happiness? Yes, by holding a steady mechanic’s job and raising his son Pakamile (Boleng Mogotsi) with his beautiful wife, Malime (Masasa Mbangeni). However, that is all about to change as his old mentor, Johnny Klein (Peter Butler), arrives at his home and ambushes his place of work. This leads the Presidential Intelligence Agency (PIA) unwittingly to his front door, ordered by Mitma (Sisandra Henna), the South African presidential candidate who makes the great orange face look like a nuisance or mild irritant by comparison. The head of the PIA, Molebogeng (Connie Ferguson), is under pressure to bring Johnny to justice, but that’s because he has information on Mtima that could ruin his presidential campaign.

Directed by Mandla Dube, Heart of the Hunter could be considered the third chapter in his “Beyond Apartheid trilogy.” Alongside the riveting Silverton Siege and the enthralling Kalushi: The Story of Solomon Mahlangu, Dube specializes in films highlighting thrillers with added weight due to modern South African themes. Particularly, post-apartheid issues such as social oppression and articulating inclusive problems are incorporated into mainstream cinema.

In Heart of the Hunter, a mix of conspiracy and politics unfolds, with a subtext usually against some mystery that borders on fantasy. However, here, the film carries added weight as it encompasses decades of traumatic oppression handed down over generations. Much credit should go to the source material from Meyer, who co-wrote the script, as mentioned earlier. The collaboration between Dube and Meyer proves quite effective, with slick and effortlessly cool hand-to-hand combat scenes juxtaposed with gritty spy craft against the backdrop of what amounts to the “suppression of oppression.”

You’ll see many dismiss Heart of the Hunter as some type of VOD trashy indulgence, but don’t let the reputation of Netflix’s worldwide streaming dreams fool you. This is a super-cool action thriller with a lot of, well, heart. That’s because Khoza finds what makes the character of Zuko tick. He portrays a classic genre character torn between both sides; in this case, family and responsibility to a better tomorrow, in a wholly convincing manner. Not to mention, he has a commanding screen (or phone, tablet, or computer) presence that’s hard to ignore. (The character from the source material is practically Jack Reacher in physical prowess, which makes casting key here.)

While cinema snobs and purists, like myself, may stick their noses up at such action fare, it’s worth remembering that The Beekeeper garnered a majority of positive reviews in the trash dump of films released in January and February. Here, Dube’s film surpasses any action seen in that movie and is set against real-world issues. Heart of the Hunter is an impressive streaming thriller adaptation that I hope will lead to a franchise for Bonko Khoza and the rest of the filmmaking team.

For heaven’s sake, just enjoy the ride. 

Grade: B

Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Writers: Alice Rohrwacher, Carmela Covino, Marco Pettenello
Stars: Josh O’Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato

Synopsis: A group of archaeologists and the black market of historical artifacts.

Love, melancholy, and magical realism intertwine in Alice Rohrwacher’s latest work, La Chimera—a touching multi-layered exploration of remembrance, love, and the intertwining between the human and the spiritual. It shifts the viewer’s emotions from left to right due to the beauty of the Italian filmmaker’s dreamy, poetic storytelling and the incandescent emotions that exude from the landscapes, shot by cinematographer Hélène Louvart, and performances.

Bless Alice Rohrwacher with all of her heart. The Italian filmmaker has delivered one touching picture after another throughout her growing and fruitful career. She’s used tales about love, loss, and youthfulness, intertwining them all with Italy’s past while smearing magical realism to her narratives. Many directors have used their perspectives on the country’s history to uplift and add layers to their narratives. This is primarily seen in Germany’s new wave of directors, with Christian Petzold and Angela Schenelac leading the pack. But Rohrwacher’s cinema has a different feeling. After her international success, Happy As Lazaro, she has remained a household name in the modern era of Italian auteurs. Filled with bliss and elegance, Rohrwacher clicks on all cylinders, especially since her latest work, La Chimera, sets her down a path of great success. 

Set in 1980s Italy, the title gives a couple of hints at what’s to come later in the narrative. Many may refer to a “chimera” as the fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail–and the Italian filmmaker hints at the Greek mythology creature’s mystically through her mythic underpinnings. But Rohrwacher turns to the word’s second definition: a thing that is hoped or wished for but is illusory or impossible to achieve. The first images she presents give us an introduction to this. The film begins from the point of view of the current unnamed protagonist, shown in lavish super-8 footage. The protagonist’s gaze is aimed at a beautiful blonde woman, Beniamina (Yile Yara Vianello), as the sun kisses her face. These images feel like a dream or a distant memory that a person is trying to hold onto. 

It is soon revealed through us via this imagery that Beniamina has passed away and that these moments scattered across La Chimera are indeed memories of a man burdened by grief. In the scene immediately following, we meet the film’s protagonist, Arthur (Josh O’Connor), who is sleeping on the train home. “Were you dreaming?” asks the ticket collector to the young man, maintaining that relevant trajectory of intertwining dreams and reality subtly, yet resplendently. These visions introduce us to a world that cannot be seen with human eyes, a portal that connects the reverie with the land Arthur and his tombaroli (Etruscan tomb raiders) crew scavenge for objects left for the dead so their souls can rest. 

Josh O’Connor brilliantly approaches his character as if he were a living ghost, a man who lost his vigor and passion after losing the love of his life. He is primarily a brooding figure, an unreliable protagonist who doesn’t believe death separates us from the people we hold dear. And, just like Lazarro in Rohrwacher’s previous feature, Arthur has a preternatural ability that might serve him as a guide to reach his beloved Beniamina. He can find the locations of old tombs through divine premonition; his crew of tomb-raiding criminals scavenges the objects found while the Englishman looks for her signal. Many other characters help him throughout his journey of desolation, particularly Italia (Carol Duarte, delivering a lovely performance filled with warmth), who is like a beacon of light that brightens Arthur’s path, as well as his heart. So, he isn’t alone in this journey. 

In the Q&A for this film at the 61st New York Film Festival, an audience member asked Alice Rohrwacher about her decision to curate Arthur’s journey of identity and yearning with so many nods to classic myths, fables, and fairy tales. The Italian filmmaker responded by saying, “Fairy tales are like a distillation of reality.” She mentioned that showering her films with magical realism was her way of approaching reality in a non-schmaltzy or syrupy manner–in her words, in a non-pornographic way. Many filmmakers abuse emotions like sympathy or empathy in the experience that their characters endure. And while Rorhrwacher’s films contain those moments in which the reverie comes to life in alluring ways, they end up ringing truer and feeling more emotionally potent than those who want to cram humanism forcefully. 

Much like the Argentinian-French novelist Julio Cortázar (writer of “Casa Tomada,” “La Noche Boca Arriba,” and “Hopscotch”), Rorhrwacher embalms her stories with an array of metaphors and poetic elements as the characters she writes go on their respective quests for identity and deal with longing. Both of them treat their stories with elements of fantasy. However, Cortázar was more of a surrealist and existentialist, covering the draining mundanity of the everyday lives of ordinary people; meanwhile, Rohrwacher relies more on folkloric narratives about the complexities of human relationships – dealing with the emotionally shifting nature of the people we care for, the bridge between life and death, as well as the history of the land beneath our feet. 

From the moment the film begins, Rohrwacher puts a spell on you, the effect increasing as the story moves on from one magical moment to another. Nowadays, there aren’t many cinematic experiences like the one Alice Rohrwacher brings us, which is full of splendor, yet painting melancholy in a shade that isn’t its usual dark one. The Italian filmmaker doesn’t want to use the pessimistic tone to reflect our existentialist thoughts. Instead, she embraces the darkness of loss to conjure something full of light. As a piece of cinema, La Chimera feels like a product of many recollections, emotions, questions, and experiences, all put together in a manner that reflects some of our doubts about the culmination of life.

La Chimera is more than relatable and approachable; instead, it reorients how we think about the line between this world and the next. There’s a moment late in La Chimera when Arthur caresses and admires a stone head missing from a 5th-century statue. Arthur looks at it with a sense of remembrance; the piece reminds him of his lost loved one, Beniamina. Just like the first scene in the film, but with the roles reversed, the sun is kissing his face this time around. It takes him back; all of the memories they shared start to play in his mind like a collage; he quickly glimpses through it all as the equally magnetic and towering power of love and loss crosses his entire body. 

He then remarks with a quote that was previously said by Carol Duarte’s character: “You were not meant for human eyes.” And the line puts the final nail in the coffin in terms of the film’s impact. With a single sentence, Alice Rohrwacher captures the essence of her movie, uplifting the thematic and emotional importance of every scene that precedes this one. We replay every single scene in our minds with those words in consideration. They gain a different meaning, even the ones where you think the film was meandering a bit. It is the healing process personified, made by a filmmaker who converts our worries into fables that are as grounded as they are poised and soul-stirring. 

Grade: A+

Director: Adam WIngard
Writers: Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, Jeremy Slater
Stars: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens

Synopsis: Two ancient titans, Godzilla and Kong, clash in an epic battle as humans unravel their intertwined origins and connection to Skull Island’s mysteries.

This franchise has gone off the rails. Granted, it’s not a franchise that had much in terms of a deep mythos. The filmmakers have had to make a lot of it up with a sprinkling of the stories developed in the original Japanese Godzilla films. It’s just that what they’re making up is nonsense. Not the fun kind of nonsense like most time travel comedies, but a headache inducing kind of nonsense like any film that attempts to recapture the magic of a more popular film that got there first.

It doesn’t help that every time a human is on screen they vomit exposition. While the previous films had far too many humans, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, has a slim coterie of adventurers, each one an “expert” who takes over talking duties when another one has finished. The film is written as if we really need context to multiple kaiju pummeling each other into the dirt. The spectacle is the monsters.

Though, that’s another weak point of the film. So much of it is spent with Kong, telling his story through dialogue free sequences that are then explained. The moviegoing public isn’t so dense that they can’t differentiate the protagonist ape, Kong, from the antagonist ape, Skar King. Why these apes aren’t with the other creatures in the upper levels of the hollow earth is just stuffing and so irrelevant. The exposition only serves to build a universe that is unbearably uninteresting.

The details are irrelevant, just like almost every human in this film. To tell you of the relevant human would be to give spoilers, so just trust that there is one, though only one. All other humans are collateral damage that don’t even merit close up reaction shots. There is supposed to be a fun aspect to the collateral damage of cities. When two monsters fight, it’s exciting and terrifying. We feel for the people below them, but the filmmakers never give us anyone to hold onto. There’s no Elizabeth Olsen running away or Millie Bobby Brown screaming her head off. There’s no emotional connection, not even in the fights themselves.

The filmmakers stuffed Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire with so much kaiju on kaiju action that most of it is blink and you miss it entirely. Did you just see a giant crustacean get boiled by Godzilla? Maybe, but all you see now is Rome partially destroyed and covered in guts. Then it’s off to the next scene. These are giant monsters, they should live in the wide shot, we should see the true impact of their destruction, yet we get nothing in the way of a breather. Not even a cheer or a real sigh of relief from our human protagonists. They aren’t even on the sidelines for most of the fights, but completely elsewhere uncaring about the destruction of the world.

This franchise has no real direction or metaphor like the original Showa Era of Japanese Godzilla films or the current Reiwa Era of Japanese Godzilla films. It may be because while Godzilla is in the title and is arguably the bigger draw for casual fans, this film, and the one before it, are Kong films. The franchise has embarked upon a story that heavily favors Kong, which makes it far weaker. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is an especially weak entry. It lacks the grand battles that require no deep mythology and like most franchises when it hits this point, it has far too many antagonists.

Though, there are a couple of bright spots amongst the monster mayhem. The chemistry between Dan Stevens and Brian Tyree Henry is delightful and not nearly present enough. Get these two a buddy film. The other bright spot is if you enjoy the small stories. There’s a nice coming of age/parenting narrative between Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and her adopted daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle). The two are at odds, but come together, it’s sweet if predictable. Are these enough to recommend this film? Not at all. It’s high time for the Monsterverse to give up and let these two creatures live to roar again separately another day.

Grade: D

Director: Weston Razooli
Writer: Weston Razooli
Stars: Lio Tipton, Weston Razooli, Charles Halford

Synopsis: Three mischievous children embark on a woodland odyssey when their mother sends them on an errand.

I think most of us are very protective of our childhoods, especially our outdoor adventures with our friends and neighbors. The combination of wonderment, consternation, and curiosity creates a fantasy-like atmosphere to those ventures – climbing trees, running on the hot summer days, and skateboarding through the neighborhood, amongst other activities I indulged in. There’s some magic to it, one that cannot be replicated as we grow older. Yet those memories are left intact and can transport us back from time to time. Many directors have tried to replicate this feeling with their films. But, on most occasions, they never tend to capture that aspect of imagination and daydreaming within each person’s childhood escapades. And that’s where Weston Razooli and his feature-length debut, Riddle of Fire, come into play. 

American writer/director Razooli uncovers the magic behind children’s creativity, delivering a playful, fanciful original film, even though it grows a tad weary. It is an odyssey about friendship and those memories from “back in the day” that we hold dearly. And it all begins with three young balaclava-wearing rascals from Ribbon, Wyoming – Hazel (Charlie Stover), Alice (Phoebe Ferro), and Jodie (Skyler Peters) – who are hanging out during their summer vacation. They have created a “gang” named the “Three Immortal Reptiles”, taking the name from the animal claw necklaces they hang around their necks. This trinity of mischief-making younglings ride around the plains on their dirt bikes and carry paintball guns as weapons, in case of trouble (or if they just want to bother someone). 

These rascals have performed many capers during their summers together. But they will remember their latest venture for a long, long time. The events in Riddle of Fire begin when they end up stealing a newly released video game console from a nearby warehouse – sneaking around, hiding from a security guard, and ending up with the goods. The trio are excited to sit around the TV and play video games until the night comes. However, some difficulties stand in their way. For starters, the television has been password-protected by Jodie’s mother, Julie (Danielle Hoetmer), who is currently bedridden and wants the kids to spend their time outside rather than spend all day gaming. But she has an offer that they can’t refuse. 

Julie asks for a blueberry pie from her favorite bakery – a treat that always brightened her day when she was younger – and she will let them play with the new console for two hours. When they notice that the bakery is all out of pies, the trio decide not to give up on the mission and bake the pie themselves, as a token of appreciation might be of more value than buying the treat (and they could potentially haggle some more playing time because of it). So, they get every ingredient needed to bake the pie, except for a speckled egg taken by a man named John Redrye (Charles Halford). The kids beg him for the eggs, but the stranger refuses. Full of spite and vigor, the “Three Immortal Reptiles” decided to follow him home and steal what he took from them. 

What transpires is an adventure in the Utah mountains that involves a poaching ring, a taxidermist cult named the “Enchanted Blade Gang,” a fairy hidden in the woods, and many sparks of imaginative, while cluttered, independent filmmaking by Weston Razooli. Arriving with the tagline “The Coolest Debut from Cannes” (and rightfully so), Riddle of Fire is a slick experience constructed inside and out from children’s minds and aimed at the viewer’s previous selves—the inner child in us all. The film immediately takes you back to those days when there wasn’t a care in the world. You were roaming free with your friends during the sunny summer days, no matter the decade in which you grew up. Weston Razooli captures that essence that many filmmakers have had difficulty grasping in their respective films about the youth due to their lack of playfulness and creativity. 

That same ingenuity fuels each performance, all feeling genuine as if they were pulled directly from that world. The kids sometimes mumble and fumble their lines, yet Razooli leaves them to make the experience feel more authentic, even though it is more based on fantasies imagined by children. You live and breathe each setting, thanks to the odd details in not only the characters but what they were, the locations, and the fairy-tale-esque atmosphere that isn’t afraid to go darker once in a while. Unfortunately, a couple of things prevent Riddle of Fire from being a truly outstanding directorial debut. The main issues in Weston Razooli’s film are the occasional meandering nature of his narrative and the shifting tones. 

A big chunk of the movie feels like a bunch of segments clambered onto one another with some style and flash. Every angle of this story, whether it is the multiple subplots and awkward moments, seems too loose and laid back to mold an organized narrative around it. You are entertained by it all, as the “Three Immortal Reptiles” are charismatic enough to follow them around during their hijinks. Yet, when you examine the story closely, many moments feel like “filler” material—segments unrelated to the main plot that don’t alter much of the characters’ relationships and simply take up space. I believe it is in these moments that the feeling of nostalgia and innocence begins to fade. The director recuperates that feeling from time to time, but it is a shifting wave of ups and downs. 

With a runtime of 113 minutes, Weston Razooli extends his debut with scenes that add nothing to the leading trio’s dynamics–with a handful of threads left relatively uncooked and unsatisfactory–instead of doing some substantial trimming to ensure the emotional value of this story doesn’t lose itself amidst the “cool factors” being implemented. I still believe that there’s plenty to admire and be fascinated by in Riddle of Fire, primarily because of its low-budget cost and production. Razooli wrote, directed, edited, acted, and did some of the costumes for the film. And it is very impressive that he managed all those tasks without wearing down his picture altogether. As a piece of independent filmmaking, Riddle of Fire is truly a marvel of a project. Shot across 20 days, Razooli managed to get the best out of every situation and got away with something magical yet cluttered in a way that seems acceptive to each flaw or slight mistake during the production.

Grade: B

Director: Kobi Libii
Writer: Kobi Libii
Stars: Justice Smith, David Alan Grier, An-Li Bogan

Synopsis: A young man is recruited into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making white people’s lives easier.

One of the first promos I saw for Kobi Libii’s debut feature, The American Society of Magical Negroes, placed the film’s actors in a sort of jokey standoff. Stars Justice Smith, An-Li Bogan, and David Alan Grier all invited audiences to come see “their” new movie, each actor playfully ribbing the next as they placed an emphasis on the fact that the film they were all promoting was theirs. (“Check out the trailer for my new movie…”, “I think you mean my new movie…”, etc.) This sort of banter has become an oddly trendy way to introduce trailers to audiences; the cringiest version came from Anyone But You stars Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney — and was later parodied by Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder as they promoted their show, The Curse. But the key to this bit, in all its iterations, is a cast-wide understanding of the truth behind it: That these movies belong more to duos or ensembles than they do to one character, and are better off for it.

What none of these trailer intros make an attempt to do, understandably, is try to make a case for what ideas the film in question is in service of. That’s up to the movie itself to illustrate, and for those viewing it critically to dissect in the aftermath. A film like Anyone But You is easy: a sexy rom-com with ambitions to serve as catnip for audiences seeking a throwback to genre movies of yore. Something like The American Society of Magical Negroes, however, is a more complex case. Does it wish to push buttons? Or to cause audiences to consider their own behavior in regards to the subject matter, something deeper, something unintentionally malignant, perhaps? Maybe it’s setting out to take a reasonably well-known trope — the “magical negro” refers to a Black character whose primary reason for existence is to help further a White protagonist’s journey — and flip it on its head.

On the surface, each of these answers could ostensibly apply to Libii’s film. It markets itself as a satire, a think piece, and an argument for individual reckoning all rolled into one. But The American Society of Magical Negroes has other ambitions, too: it aims to charm you, to make you laugh, to make its potentially-discomfiting title and overarching premise more digestible. Or, at least, that’s what it appears to want to do. And therein lies the problem. 

A goal-ridden film like Libii’s should be ambitious, but so often do we see directors — not just first timers, though they make up a sizable chunk of this population — miss the trees for the forest, not the other way around, due to an insistence on being liked rather than being properly understood. It’s not that Society shouldn’t be charming or funny, but that it shouldn’t cloak itself in a security blanket woven together by those elements. In other words, it’s a film that should and could be far more challenging, if only it wasn’t so hell-bent on being winsome.

It’s the story of Los Angeles-based artist, Aren (Justice Smith, quickly becoming the go-to actor for delightfully anxious millennial parts, and for good reason), who has a penchant for pieces made out of yarn that no one understands. After a particularly disastrous gallery showing, at which one White patron mistakes him for a waiter, he’s approached by Roger (David Alan Grier) who promises a more fulfilling life should he join the titular underground society. They work, Roger explains in so many words, to make White people feel better about themselves, thus making the world a safer place for Black people. Indeed, they do so with a little dash of wizardry.

Aren’s first full-time client is a tech bro named Jason (Drew Tarver) who is undeservingly in line for a promotion at MeetBox, a unimaginatively-conjured software company with a Musk-esque CEO (Rupert Friend) where employees spend more time playing ping pong and ordering juices of varied greenness than they do coding or designing. Well, most of them, that is: Lizzie (a lovely An-Li Bogan) is one step below Jason in staff hierarchy but eons above him in talent and drive. Jason not only sees Lizzie as his “work wife”, but also happens to have feelings for her. And despite the fact that those feelings seem to come from a place of general attraction/convenience and not, say, actually knowing her, furthering Jason’s romantic prospects becomes Aren’s primary duty. 

Which is a bummer, because Aren, having had a coffee-shop meet-cute with Lizzie mere moments before his first day on the job and, more importantly, having developed a true connection with this workplace paramour, now has to choose between his responsibilities to the society and his feelings. But the whole point of their work is to set aside their feelings in order to make the world a better place for all, even if a more appropriate phrasing for “better” might be “easier for White people, safer for Black lives.” 

Yet, just as Aren is anxiously conflicted between his work for the society and exploring a love connection — not to mention that if his personal interests take precedence over the society’s goals, every member could lose their powers — it seems that Libii is caught between two complementary elements of a single narrative without ever really fleshing the more important one out. The satirical nature of Society does, indeed, feel shorthanded, as though Libii felt he couldn’t fortify the so-called central pillar of his plot without amplifying the presence of what should have remained a secondary beat to the far-more important one. 

There is a cavernous distance between a film with provocative aspirations and one that succeeds in provoking. The issue with The American Society of Magical Negroes is that, despite its window-dressing, it seems to possess neither. There are ideas aplenty to back a trio of good-not-great performances from Smith, Bogan, and Grier; but whatever substance those ideas might have once contained seems to have been stripped out in favor of a film that more resembles a stunted, by-the-numbers rom-com than the film its clever prompt suggests. 

The closest it ever comes to causing a stir is with its “climax”, when Aren predictably unloads all of the pent up frustration he’s had to push aside in favor of the society’s best interests in a speech littered with schlocky one-liners about heavy racial anxieties and fears. And while Smith’s performance, both here and over the course of the film as a whole, stands tall, the sequence in question merely limits Society’s objectives even more than they already have been. 

It’s a shame how short Libii’s debut comes up, considering how well-attuned the director appears to be when it comes to how successful some stories of this nature have been in the past. In a pre-release featurette for the film, he noted that, culturally, “we’re pretty good about telling stories about overt racism — slavery stories, legal discrimination — because they’re visual. But the more common microaggressions are incredibly hard to pin down.” If only his own attempt at pinning them down wasn’t so ham-handed. 

Grade: C-

Director: Steve Buscemi
Writer: Alessandro Camon
Stars: Tessa Thompson, Logan Marshall-Green, Margaret Cho

Synopsis: Follows a helpline volunteer who is part of the small army that gets on the phone every night, fielding calls from all kinds of people feeling lonely, broken, etc.

“Call back anytime, ask for Beth”

Legendary actor Steve Buscemi steps behind the camera to direct The Listener written by Alessandro Camon. The “listener” is Beth (Tessa Thompson — the only person to appear on camera in the film). She is doing late night shifts on a peer supported crisis hotline. Calls aren’t traced, both the caller and the listener are anonymous. The film documents a single night in “Beth’s” life and gradually reveals who she is; while immediately grappling with division, loneliness, anxiety, fear, and disconnection in American society.

Beth is awake staring at the ceiling before her alarm goes off. She greets her dog, brushes her teeth, puts on a strong pot of coffee. Her fingers click against her coffee cup. She is readying herself for her “day.” Buscemi gives the audience a sense that for a long time, especially since the pandemic, this has been her life. Perhaps it has been her life longer than that. 

She sits down and prepares for her first call. It is from Michael (Logan Marshall-Green) who has not been long out of prison. He can’t sleep. So used to institutional time, he is lost in his freedom. For Michael the pandemic was “Prison Time,” — the days drag on forever but as night comes you can’t recall anything you did. He speaks of how he didn’t understand that he would need a mask when coronavirus hit. He used a bandana. He wondered if he would be shot by the police or assumed to be holding up a store because he has “criminal” written all over him. Beth is gentle with him. She allows him to tell her his story. How he ended up in prison. How generations of poverty and crime led him as a six-year-old to start running with gangs. “I’m not a bad person,” he tells Beth. “I know,” she replies. They laugh a little and Beth tells him to get some sleep and thanks him for giving her the “full picture.” He doesn’t want material assistance from Beth — no organizations. Just someone to hear him.

Over the course of the evening Beth will take many calls. One from Ellis (Ricky Velez), a hateful incel who is mouthing all the online rhetoric. He’s aggressive with Beth. He speaks of the terrible things he has done, including deepfake porn to get revenge on a girl who didn’t acknowledge his existence. As much as Beth tries to connect with Ellis, that isn’t what he wants. He wants to brag, talk about his status as a victim of “the system” which excludes him from being able to fulfil his “biological needs.” He is quite legitimately dangerous. He works in IT and has already hacked school servers to show extreme pornography and violence. He then begins to masturbate when Beth tries to convince him he can turn his knowledge and skills into something positive and productive.

There are a number of calls which are supposed to be the big impact moment. The long discussion Beth has with a PTSD riddled soldier Ray (Jamie Hector) and his dream about a boot which connects his physical and psychological injuries. A discussion with Chris (Bobby Soto), a cop who talks about deliberate police violence and cover-ups on the force. How he has to balance his own safety and his gnawing conscience after he witnessed an unprovoked attack by a fellow officer which left a man permanently disabled. Unfortunately, Camon’s reiteration of systemic law enforcement corruption and American wartime interventions and the cost involved bloats rather than adds to the film. Ray’s section is too long. Beth’s responses are more interesting than the well-trod narratives Camon is proffering as commentary on America. 

Where Camon could have spent more time is with Corinne (Margaret Cho). A mother describing how she is at the end of her tether is one of the quiet gut-punches which is also one of the loudest indictments of how America has let vulnerable people down. She tells Beth she’s always a “day late and a dollar short.” When Beth responds that sometimes everyone feels like that, Corinne scoffs that she doubts that Oprah or Mrs. Zuckerberg do. When Beth tries to explain they probably have bad days because they’re human, Corinne lays out her lived reality. She’s the full-time carer for a special needs child. Her husband has lost more hours at work. He does nothing but aimlessly drink and sit around. Corinne is terrified what will happen to her child if something were to happen to her. Who will be there? 

A call from Jinx (Blu del Barrio), an unhoused teen who is “celebrating” her eighteenth birthday is a street level horror story. Jinx ran away from home at sixteen for the grand adventure with some friends. They flaked, disappeared, and now she’s a step away from being pimped out by her drug addicted and violent “boyfriend”. She doesn’t know where to place her rage and fear. She’s convinced she will be dead soon, but she’s clawing to survive. When she hangs up Beth just stares hopelessly into the distance.

Two calls, both from women, are the key to who the listener is. The first comes from Sharon (Alia Shawkat) who starts the conversation with “I am mentally ill, I am mental, I like that word, it’s like metal.” No health insurance means Sharon is unmedicated, without a doctor or psychiatrist. She’s avoiding official crisis lines because she doesn’t want to be committed. She’s aggressive, funny, expressive, and scared. “I’m having one of my episodes, my bones are snakes… my bones are snakes.” She claims she is synesthetic. She can see Beth’s voice. She can smell her over the phone. Her “lunatic ramblings” are infused with a rhythmic genius. Beth deals with Sharon’s rapid cycling mood swings which go from the grandiose, to paranoid, catastrophizing, aggressive, whimsical, and defeated. Sharon is the poster child for “danger to self and others” but Beth handles her with velvet gloves. What if she can give Sharon another avenue to help calm the noise? What if Sharon’s fast meter brain (she calls it Brian because it’s out of order) can be put to a beat which gives the intrusive thoughts a specific measure of time? 

The final call is the “truth telling.” An educated voice (Rebecca Hall) on the other end of the line launches in by asking Beth how she is. Beth is somewhat shocked because no one has asked her that question for a long time and demanded an answer. Beth demurs and tries to keep the conversation focused on her caller. Laura, as we find out later, has planned her suicide. She’s not particularly interested in being talked out of it. As a now fired professor of sociology, and broke from a divorce, she has rationally crunched the numbers and has tallied the pros and cons of the emotional and financial cost of living. 

For Laura it just no longer adds up. She has no friends, she has no job, soon she will have nowhere to live. No one will miss her. She has worked all her life and only added to what she sees as the “delusion” of hope. There are so many crises everyone has lost count. How can she tell young people that learning about the world only leads to knowing how little difference they make?

Laura’s curiosity homes in on Beth and why she keeps listening. Taking on the trauma of others. Laura knows that the program is peer related so in some manner Beth has undergone some form of social rehabilitation herself. What is she punishing herself over? 

Laura and Beth’s conversation is a philosophical tug of war with Laura’s stunning intellectual prowess and Beth’s own measured and empathetic reasoning behind why people should not give up. Laura talks about the attrition of living. The mask people put on to hide their dissatisfaction. “Your unhappiness is ashamed of itself”. Living on a planet which has already committed suicide.

Beth simply responds, “Everything means something.” The reason to be alive is to find that one small thing which means you have to get out of bed each day. Self annihilation happens in a multitude of ways. Beth experienced it. She didn’t actively have a plan to kill herself, but she also didn’t care if she died. She did things that meant she could at any moment and didn’t care. 

What Beth gets out of the program is an escape from herself. A chance to put her focus on someone else one hundred percent for however long she has with the caller. What hurts her the most is when they hang up before the conversation is over. Before she knows if she did help. Laura wants a reason to live. Beth says she has no real wisdom but tells her story. She tells the truth to the woman who is a truth teller.

Beth tells Laura she could be of benefit to the crisis line. Laura laughs. How can her cynicism help anyone? Why would she join the “Lonely Hearts Club”? Humans are more connected than ever though the internet and news, but they have never felt more alone. Beth has reminded Laura she has a heart even if it is broken. “Loneliness is a slut,” Laura laughs. Beth says she is going to steal that line.

A final call comes through. It’s Sharon with her rap. It is brilliant just as Beth suspected it would be, and Sharon’s final lines “no one has very long, so keep on writing this song,” is a summation of what Camon was trying to get across. If he had cut some of the flabbier parts of the narrative the film would be much better for it.

Steve Buscemi proves himself very adept with the camera. He knows what to show and when. Everything rests on Tessa Thompson’s prodigious talent. Her face and eyes. Her soft voice. Her compassion and obvious pain. The sound design is excellent. We know there is a world “on fire” outside Beth’s window. Not just from the calls she receives but from the sounds of sirens, choppers, and people screaming in anger. Beth’s response to everything has been to cocoon. To be “Beth” and stay inside. To keep living her prison time. To eat cheap noodles with one hand while playing with stress balls in the other.

To paraphrase Nan Goldin’s sister Barbara who committed suicide, for “All the beauty and the bloodshed” of twenty-first century living — there is a sliver of hope coming out of Pandora’s box. Curiosity, and empathy can keep one going when everything else is too much. Or simply a dog whose bark caught someone’s attention one day and led to their life being radically changed. Buscemi’s final shot is one of Beth doing the “something” that reclaimed her sense of self. 

Despite the uneven scripting, Tessa Thompson, the excellent voice cast (Hall and Shawkat are standouts), and the formal aspects of Buscemi’s film and make The Listener a meaningful work, if not a masterpiece.

Grade: B-