The Listener

Not altogether successful, "The Listener" represents a valiant effort to return Adult Cinema to telling stories that can draw the viewer into interesting stories and erotic situations instead of just doling out explicit sex and nothing more. Director Lidia Ravviso's combination of a suspenseful character study with a whodunit murder mystery weaves a hypnotic spell, marred only by the weak ending.

Maisy Taylor gives an understated, definitely mainstream performance as the central character, a woman who is highly sensitive to sounds of sex in the apartment building she's moved into. We see events largely through her eyes (and especially ears), and the quirky characters who are her neighbors provide ample material for explicit sex woven into the narrative.

Midway through the movie a woman is murdered and the apartment dwellers become suspects, with Romeo the unusual detective investigating. Movie's sexual climax is Maisy's erotic fantasy of having sex with Romeo, and the actual solution of the murder mystery is definitely an anti-climax.

I was greatly impressed by the attention to detail here in both photography and editing, most unusual for a porn movie, and evidence of the effectiveness of integrating the target audience's prurient interest with a package that stimulates more traditional "entertain me" interests as well.