LISTEN TO ME revolves around three silver-tongued college debaters who desperately yearn to be understood, and for whom words are both weapons and protection. One is Tucker Muldowney (Kirk Cameron), a poor farmer's son from Oklahoma who arrives at Kenmore College on a full debating
scholarship. His roommate, Garson McKellar (Tim Quill), is the son of a prominent senator and one of the nation's top college debaters. Monica Tomanski (Jami Gertz), a hardboiled type from a working-class family in Chicago, is also a debate scholarship winner. The film heats up when the team
enters a national tournament, with the final debate to take place before five members of the Supreme Court, on television. The topic is abortion, an issue that sharply divides Tucker and Monica. For a movie about the art of debate, this film presents few striking or even artfully crafted
arguments. Too often, we are told that a character has just delivered a clever rhetorical parry, despite all evidence to the contrary; arguments tend to be supported more by reactions than by verbal dexterity. Stewart's view of debate as an extension of the psychiatrist's couch turns what should
be fascinating intellectual play into an anti-intellectual, self-indulgent exercise.
