'She Listens Alone' Review
Release Date: 10/30/26 [VOD]
Genre: Thriller.
MPAA: Not Rated.
Distributor: Indie Rights.
The Verdict: A Maybe
Obsession is the thing with feathers—a plague of our modern times, as screens blur the line between personal and professional. Everything is now interconnected, as some of us work, date, and socialize through our screens, with real life receding into the background. Director Sean O. McGuiness’ She Listens Alone plays on that theme in a rather intelligent way. It adds to a genre already defined by the massive success of Curry Barker’s Obsession in modern dating and stalking, and by films like Missing and Searching in terms of the screenlife drama.
This feature follows Sabrina, a virtual therapist who feels isolated despite her successful online business. One day, a client named Andrew enters the chat, and that's where it begins. I really appreciated the message the film is trying to convey: kindness sometimes costs a woman a little too much. Women go out of their way to show they care or listen. Their empathetic nature at times leads them to be misunderstood, exploited, and taken advantage of by creepy males lurking online aimlessly, looking for prey, even if it is to pass the time.
But what happens when the too-kind woman actually meets a man obsessed with her kindness, but it’s not the safe, golden retriever kind? And it’s the sinister, mentally unstable kind? Credit must be given to casting the stunning and highly talented Alivia Levie as Sabrina. In a movie dictated by screens, viewers are stuck with the actors for over an hour, so the actors portraying the characters had better be interesting enough, for there is nothing to hide behind. Levie does that and more. She commands the screen and steals the scene, all the while having the promising features and charisma of a star in the making. Same goes for Wyatt Tithof as Andrew, playing the unsettling handsome creep, another trope which sadly women fall for easily to dire consequences.
The movie intelligently comments on people’s overreliance on the online world. In this virtual existence, immediate reward systems exist in malicious forms, providing bursts of fake pleasure-seeking and rewarding romantic and sexual games. Of course, every real-life situation would pale in comparison. All this is done through the intense scenes between Andrew and Sabrina, especially compared to the bland, almost strained relationship she has with her boyfriend.
However, one of the major problems in the movie is the continuity of some scenes. Sabrina’s hairstyle changes between shots. It completely breaks my immersion. When greater care is paid to those little details, movies sustain their credibility and believability more. And unfortunately, the piling up of little details that seem off creates an invisible barrier between the viewer -ironically- watching the movie from behind their laptop or big TV screens.
Another unnecessary element is the dream sequences. They take away from the film's heightened sense of dread and suspense. Without them, the film would’ve gained more weight and less sense of “passing time,” which is a major letdown in that genre. I kept checking my watch during those sequences, unlike the therapy scenes, which carried too much tension, highly fitting for a thriller.
It’s a promising project from a new voice in thriller/suspense, but without its solid cast, She Listens Alone wouldn’t have offered as much.
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