Patrick Stettner’s “The Night Listener,” while drawn from a supposedly nonfiction account by Armistead Maupin of a telephonic courtship between himself and a damaged young man, has so many parallels to the recent revelation of the JT Leroy hoax, it’s difficult to separate that history from the mild thriller clichés that amble past on screen. Robin Williams plays Gabriel Noone, a gay Joe Frank-like confessor of the air, so named, it seems, so his radio show can be called “Noone at Night.” Or, perhaps, to indicate that he is an angel unwittingly seeking his own salvation when he sets out in search of a teenage author he knows only via the telephone who’s written a violent account of vicious pedophilic abuse at the hands of his family. Stettner’s first feature, “The Business of Strangers” (2001) wore its well-measured decors and heated performances of Julia Stiles and Stockard Channing with greater effect. Beyond a clatter of contrivances, the most diverting aspects of “The Night Listener” are the nicely appointed furnishings, making for a warmly enticing post-Pottery Barn series of settings that are a lot like the nice sweaters Gabriel favors. We also could do with fewer scenes that lie to the audience. With Toni Colette in a trying role as the boy’s protector, given a number of actory things to do that do not become her gifts (see “Little Miss Sunshine” for her strong, subtle work), Joe Morton as the book’s publisher-to-be and Bobby Cannavale as Gabriel’s lover who’s just left him and Sandra Oh as a quietly acerbic pal. 82m. (The version screened at Sundance was 91m.) (Ray Pride)
