Listen Carefully was a film which sounded interested even before it revealed its bonkers side. Written, directed, and starring Ryan Barton-Grimley (Hawk and Rev: Vampire Hunters), this was a wild film that started off bizarre and managed to get more and more surreal as it went on. .
Mild mannered assistant bank manager Andy McNeary (Barton-Grimley) seems to be sleep walking through life, going through the motions both at his stressful job, as well as with his marriage with wife Allie (Simone Barton-Grimley). The couple have recently had a baby, and with Allie going on a girl's night out she reluctantly leaves Andy at home with the baby. Having recently brought an owl shaped baby monitor, he is told to keep it on him at all times so that he can hear if the baby needs anything. It isn't long after Allie has left that things go very wrong. Going to check on the baby, Andy is alarmed to see the bedroom window wide open and the baby gone, though he is still able to hear its cries on the baby monitor, the twin of which has vanished along with his child. Soon, a voice (Ari Schneider) on the monitor makes itself known to Andy, he tells the frantic man that if he wishes to see the baby again then he must use his position at the bank to gather a large sum of money and deliver it to an undisclosed location. The voice also reveals that it knows Andy has been siphoning money from his job using cloned cards, and that if Andy doesn't comply with the demands then not only will he never see his child again, but the police will be given evidence of Andy's crimes. This begins an extremely surreal night where the ordinary doesn't happen very often.
The film had a feel of a persistent nightmare where it is never clear exactly what is real and what is imagined. The tone is set straight away with a sequence that has Andy being pursued by figures dressed in black and wearing grotesque baby masks late at night in a deserted part of the city. This is swiftly revealed to be a nightmare the man is having, but the figure in black with the baby mask is a recurring vision Andy has, sometimes appearing in his nightmares whenever he falls asleep, and sometimes occurring as hallucinations that happen at the most inappropriate times. Whatever is happening, it is clear that the unreliable protagonist has issues that stem deeper than the terrible night the film takes place on.
Andy made for a bizarre lead, someone whose past crimes have made him used to lying, and who is able to operate in the stressful situation he finds himself in. He has manic episodes throughout the film, with him imagining himself to suddenly be in a different location, such as in a blood soaked kitchen, or surrounded by baby monitors, those made for some neatly edited sequences. The more fun character was the voice on the phone, I loved the sarcastic and jokey way he spoke with Andy, and his frequent frustration when Andy is spinning out and ignoring the voice's questions. It has to be said that having the villain speak out of a baby monitor that resembled an owl was always amusing to have on screen.
The first half of Listen Carefully is Andy's night time quest to gather the money the kidnapper is demanding. This is made all the more stressful due to road blocks such as characters suspicious of his actions, like the janitor at his work (Richard Gayler), a recurring cop character, and his increasingly drunk wife's constant phone calls. This was all a prelude for the madness to follow, with the second half of the film getting increasingly crazy as events escalate to ridiculous levels. I liked that the film never really finishes its story, there is false end after false end all the way to the end credits.
I love these types of films where there is a random road the viewer is led on. Andy and the small supporting cast all had their roles to play, combining to make a paranoid and desperate quest that might have left me confused, but was also a unique and weird baby monitor themed journey through the worst night of a man's life. Listen Carefully has its North American premiere at Dances With Films: LA on June 22nd.
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