What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were struggling to get to sleep last night, you could have jumped over to Tubi and watched the 1989 film, Listen to Me.

Listen to Me tells the story of two poor but ambitious teenagers who receive debate scholarships to fictional Kenmont University.  Monica Tomanski (Jami Gertz) is a liberal from Chicago.  Tucker Muldowney (Kirk Cameron) is a “shit-kickin’ conservative” who is from Oklahoma.  Despite their different political beliefs, Monica and Tucker find themselves assigned to be debate partners by the college’s legendary debate coach, Charlie Nichols (Roy Scheider).

At Kenmont, debate is as popular and as important as football is at some other colleges.  The entire student body shows up to listen to the debates and to cheer for their side.  It’s like Oxford, if Oxford was solely populated by 80s teen actors.  (Seriously, there’s a lot of familiar faces wandering around that campus.)  Charlie is convinced that this could be the year that he wins the national tournament.  Gar McKellar (Tom Quill), the troubled son of Sen. McKellar (Anthony Zerbe), is one of the best debaters in the country.  However, Gar fears that winning a national debate tournament will somehow lead to him going into politics.  He wants to be a writer and he’s got a self-destructive streak.  As you probably already guessed, this all leads to Tucker and Monica debating the arrogant Harvard team in front of the Supreme Court.  The topic?  Whether or not Roe v Wade should be overturned….

A few thoughts on Listen to Me:

Kirk Cameron’s “Oklahoma” accent is, without a doubt, the worst that I have ever heard in any film ever made.  When I was growing up, I did occasionally live in Oklahoma.  I still visit Oklahoma frequently.  Yes, people in Oklahoma do have an accent.  However, that accent sounds nothing like whatever Cameron was trying to do in this film.  Whenever Kirk Cameron speaks, he sounds less like an Oklahoma farm boy and more like the tubercular son of a once proud New Orleans family.  Beyond the accent, Cameron just isn’t believable as a quick-on-his-feet debate champ.  He overplays when he should underplay and underplays …. well, I can’t think of a single scene that he underplays.  It’s just not a good performance.

Jami Gertz is a bit more convincing as Monica.  (It perhaps helps that Gertz, like her character, is actually from Chicago.)  But, for the majority of the film, Monica is seriously underwritten.  She’s a straw feminist, who largely exists so that Tucker can tell her to loosen up.

As for the other debaters, we don’t learn much about them.  That’s a shame because some of them — like Amanda Peterson’s crippled debater — seem like they would be much more interesting to follow than either Gar, Tucker, or Monica.  It’s a crime to cast Peter DeLuise as an Ivy League debater without giving us a chance to actually see him debate.

Roy Scheider gives the best performance in the film, which isn’t really a surprise.  That said, Charlie Nichols was a terrible debate coach, one whose entire philosophy seemed to be based on teaching his debaters to make loud and emotional arguments and hope that the judge doesn’t understand how competitive debating is supposed to work.

Would the Supreme Court really judge a national debate tournament?

As for the debates themselves, it’s hard not to notice that all of the arguments are emotional.  There’s little talk of evidence or research or anything else.  Instead, the characters talk about how abortion has personally effected them.  (The Harvard team is portrayed as being snooty villains when they dare to bring up an actual clinical study about abortion.)  Admittedly, I did not do college debate but I was involve with Speech and Debate in High School and, when it came to debate, I always tried to get by with the same cutesy techniques that everyone uses in this film.  If the judge was a man, I definitely showed a little leg.  If someone asked me about a study that disproved my argument, I’d respond by citing a fictional study that disproved their study.  I was the Queen of Dramatic Personal Anecdote!  And I rarely made it out of the preliminary rounds because most judges — the good ones, at least — were able to tell that I hadn’t bothered to do my homework and that I was just trying to skate by on charm and wit.  My coach often told me that if I would actually do the work, I’d probably make it to the semis and beyond but …. eh, doing the work was just too much …. well, work.  So, you can imagine my surprise when Tucker and Monica used the same techniques that I used and were declared to be the best debaters in the country!

Seriously, I was robbed!

Listen to Me is a very 80s film, right down to the debate montages and the explanations about why Roe v Wade would never actually be overturned.  It tries to do for college debate what numerous other college-set films did for football an binge-drinking.  Unfortunately, the film’s intentions are defeated by a didactic script and a miscast lead.  It feels considerably longer than 100 minutes, which might help you with your insomnia.

Previous Insomnia Files:

1. Story of Mankind
2. Stag
3. Love Is A Gun
4. Nina Takes A Lover
5. Black Ice
6. Frogs For Snakes
7. Fair Game
8. From The Hip
9. Born Killers
10. Eye For An Eye
11. Summer Catch
12. Beyond the Law
13. Spring Broke
14. Promise
15. George Wallace
16. Kill The Messenger
17. The Suburbans
18. Only The Strong
19. Great Expectations
20. Casual Sex?
21. Truth
22. Insomina
23. Death Do Us Part
24. A Star is Born
25. The Winning Season
26. Rabbit Run
27. Remember My Name
28. The Arrangement
29. Day of the Animals
30. Still of The Night
31. Arsenal
32. Smooth Talk
33. The Comedian
34. The Minus Man
35. Donnie Brasco
36. Punchline
37. Evita
38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
39. Disclosure
40. The Spanish Prisoner
41. Elektra
42. Revenge
43. Legend
44. Cat Run
45. The Pyramid
46. Enter the Ninja
47. Downhill
48. Malice
49. Mystery Date
50. Zola
51. Ira & Abby
52. The Next Karate Kid
53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
54. Jud
55. FTA
56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
59. True Spirit
60. Project Kill
61. Replica
62. Rollergator
63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
65. Girl Lost
66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
67. Heist
68. Mind, Body & Soul
69. Candy
70. Shortcut to Happiness
71. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders
72. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders II
73. Don’t Kill It