It’s amazing how a cross-section of people can interpret one singular phenomenon with so many different explanations, and how each explanation can create a community, for better or worse. An earthquake, a shooting, a disease, a feeling — most people look to science or common sense, others to political conspiracies, some to God, some to scapegoats. HBO’s underrated The Leftovers is a phenomenal example of depicting this, how hubris, power (or the lack thereof), fear, and ignorance can create different reactions to the same event, and create different communities in the process. A new BBC series, The Listeners, based on the 2021 novel by author Jordan Tannahill, plays around with those same themes and confines it to a particular set of people almost in the same manner.
The Listeners, which screened its first two episodes at TIFF, focuses on a strange, as-yet-unexplained noise that only certain people can hear. Director Janicza Bravo utilizes sound design as a pertinent tool to detach an English school teacher from the rest of her inner circle and then conjoin her with a group and its mysterious leader. When things happen that we can’t explain, we seek out others to make sense of everything. While the first two episodes don’t uncover the source of the mystery in the slightest, they hint at the danger of ignoring your conscience to find understanding.
Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound
Claire (Rebecca Hall) is a school teacher slowly tormented by a buzzing noise nobody else hears. Her husband, Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah), and daughter, Ashley (Mia Tharia), don’t hear it. Claire goes through multiple tests with doctors, and her vitals are fine. But she is having sudden nosebleeds and is under a lot of stress from this enigmatic situation. Could it be from the 5K towers or a power line? Nobody seems to know, but Claire is more inclined to go down a rabbit hole or two to find out. Unfortunately for her, this buzzing is becoming increasingly erratic, forming an artificial distance between her and her family.
Enter a loner student named Kyle (Ollie West) in her classroom. He also hears the constant buzzing and tries to listen to music to drown it out. Great! There’s another person who at least confirms Claire isn’t going insane. However, it presents a considerable complication, given that Kyle is her student. She’s desperate to rid herself of the noise, or at least find out what it is, but how would it look to bond with her student of the opposite sex and spend time together in search of a common answer? Bravo presents this dilemma where the audience feels the urgency to discover the source of these noises while hoping lives don’t get ruined.
Rebecca Hall & Ollie West Carry The Listeners
To Bravo’s credit, the first two episodes provide a good balance of uncovering the source while developing an understanding of the personal relationships it affects. Hall provides a very nuanced character as Claire, who only looks to get to the bottom of the thing plaguing her psyche. West exhibits coyness with Kyle, and it seems he is after the same thing. They both do decibel readings around town, and the noise is even lessened because they feel less alone. As the episodes conclude, his intentions are less known, and perhaps Claire has to answer for that at some point.
Things get more complicated in episode two when Claire and Kyle find a group of listeners who are subject to the same phenomenon. They are led by a leader named Omar (Amr Waked), who feels the origin of this sound comes from a frequency in the sky. But there are a plethora of opinions within this group. One person thinks it’s due to the deep state government, and others don’t buy anything that Omar is selling and want people on the outside to investigate it further. But they’re all bound by their ears and the noise.
You’ll Have to Wait for Answers, but You’ll Want To
There’s also the question of people who have left this group, and why it is not being revealed. The questions keep adding up in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the viewer entirely. If anything, there are just enough elements here for a limited series to excel at if fully realized. With only two episodes, assessing where The Listeners will go and what it will cover is tough.
You’ll automatically want to know why certain people hear the noise and others don’t, the origin story of the group of listeners, and if there is any logical explanation (other than Tinnitus) for how this can keep happening. Despite leaving you with little understanding of its actual narrative, the first two episodes of The Listeners have enough suspense, intrigue, and fine performances to remain interesting, inviting you like a pesky hum to finish what you started. Watch this space for future information about where and when to watch The Listeners.
