Social worker Toni Collette spins a serious story.

The film could not be timelier. With traditional media and bloggers going nuts over the works of JT LeRoy and James Frey, whose authorship and authenticity have been called into question, "The Night Listener" is the movie about that hot-button topic. Factor in a cast that includes Robin Williams and Toni Collette and director Patrick Stettner's thriller approach, and you have a movie likely to do well in adult venues and possibly cross over into mainstream situations.

Maupin's novel is drawn from an episode in the life of that Bay Area writer and radio storyteller. In 1992, he received a manuscript from a 14-year-old boy about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child and the female social worker who spirited him away from his nightmare. The writer then developed a relationship with the youth over the telephone.

Both the real story and the movie deal with the uncomfortable realization that quite possible neither this boy nor his story really exist. Rather -- though it remains unproven -- the story is a figment of the imagination of the "social worker," who made everything up to fulfill emotional needs in her life.

The movie's approach is that of a thriller shot in dark, moody lighting, often at night, heavy with melodrama and a sense of dread as the writer journeys to the Midwest to investigate the mystery. Right choice? Wrong choice? Well, there will be differing opinions on that, but this is, after all, the tale of a woman who just possibly dwelled in a fiction of her own life.

Williams plays the Maupin character, called Gabriel Noone so that his radio show may be called Noone at Night -- cute, no? -- and Collette is the social worker, Donna Logand. Bobby Cannavale plays Jess, Gabriel's lover, who broke up with him during this highly emotional time of his life.

The screenplay actually was written (along with Stettner) by Maupin and Terry Anderson, who is the real-life Jess, and knowing this adds another level of intrigue to the tale. It is actually Jess who notices that the voices over the telephone of the young boy, Pete, and Donna sound virtually identical.

Because of the disintegration of his most important relationship -- which in real life happened at another time -- Gabriel undertakes a journey to Wisconsin to determine once and for all the truth. But Donna has constructed impressive barriers for Gabriel to surmount because Pete (Rory Culkin) is always in an unnamed hospital battling AIDS. Plus, town folks are so overly protective of the two, still hiding out from the boy's vicious parents, as to become lethal weapons against all outsiders.

This is where all the tension and eerie "Twilight Zone" suspense come in, abetted in no small measure by Lisa Rinzler's atmospheric cinematography and Peter Nashel's brilliant, propulsive score.

So this is a Chinese-box movie with puzzles lurking inside puzzles and a melodramatic overlay that keeps one on the edge of the seat. "The Night Listener" is one of the few films that manages to be highly cerebral and a great popcorn movie simultaneously.

THE NIGHT LISTENER
IFC Films
Hart-Sharp Entertainment and Independent Film Channel Prods. in association with Fortissimo Films
Credits:
Director: Patrick Stettner
Screenwriters: Armistead Maupin, Terry Anderson, Patrick Stettner
Based on the novel by: Armistead Maupin
Producers: John N. Hart, Jeffrey Sharp, Robert Kessel, Jill Footlick
Executive producers: Michael Hogan, Armistead Maupin, Terry Anderson, Jonathan Sehring, Caroline Caplan
Director of photography: Lisa Rinzler
Production designer: Michael Shaw
Music: Peter Nashel
Costume designer: Marina Draghici
Editor: Andy Keir
Cast:
Gabriel Noone: Robin Williams
Donna: Toni Collette
Jess: Bobby Cannavale
Anna: Sandra Oh
Pete: Rory Culkin
Noone's father: John Cullum
Ashe: Joe Morton
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 91 minutes