THE VISITOR

Directed by Thomas McCarthy; screenplay by Thomas McCarthy; director of photography, Oliver Bokelberg; edited by Tom McArdle; music by Jan A. P. Kaczmarek

With: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira, Hiam Abbass, Marian Seldes, Richard Kind, Michael Cumpsty, Maggie Moore, Bill McHenry, and Tzahi Moskovitz. Rated PG-13. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes

Reviewed by Joel Johnson

Richard Jenkins has made a career (seventy-eight film and television acting credits since 1974 per www.imdb.com) mostly as a reliable character actor. This film is a rare opportunity for this everyman actor to be the lead character. It is, of course, Mr. Jenkins’s capacity to embody the everyman that no doubt made him so attractive to director and screenwriter Thomas McCarthy (The Station Agent) and makes him so perfect for this role. Jenkins’s Walter Vale is a widowed college professor at a Connecticut college going through the motions of life but not really living. It’s not clear how long Walter has been alone, but it has certainly been several months if not years.

Forced to attend a professional conference in New York City, he decides to stay at the apartment that he and his wife had called home for decades. He discovers that unbeknownst to him his apartment has been sublet to a young immigrant couple. Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) is from Syria, and his girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira) is from Senegal. Both of them are undocumented, and, to avoid police and immigration authorities being called to the scene, they quickly vacate the premises. However, Walter takes pity on them and decides to let them stay at least temporarily.

Walter and the couple uneasily coexist in Walter’s apartment until Walter discovers that Tarek is a talented musician specializing in drums. When Tarek encourages Walter to join him, this begins to fill the musical void in Walter’s life since his pianist wife passed away and establishes a bond between the two men. But hardly have they become comfortable with each other, when Tarek is profiled as a likely undocumented immigrant and detained. Walter finds himself as Tarek’s only friend who is uniquely situated to help because he has legal standing as a citizen, some understanding of the American legal system, and the financial resources that goes with an upper middle-class income.

A few days after Tarek’s arrest, his mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), shows up. Drawn together through sharing a bond with Tarek, Walter and Mouna-both widowed-take tentative steps toward romance. The film demonstrates in microcosm the effects that have been attributed to immigration on American culture and society. Immigrants have renewed and strengthened American culture and society by continuously adding diversity and vitality. However, this story is also about our nation’s ambivalence-and particularly an antipathy fostered by our post-9/11 fear of foreign terrorists-toward immigrants and the legal apparatus constructed to deal with those without proper documentation. The film is not a documentary on the immigration problem, but it does provide a portrayal of the system in action. This is an emotionally restrained portrait of a cold-blooded system that fits its acronym ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to the proverbial “T.” Thomas McCarthy’s film is well written, well directed, and well acted-especially by Richard Jenkins taking advantage of that rare opportunity to be the lead character. Perhaps there will be other lead roles in his future. The Visitor takes its time, dispenses gentle amusement, opens our eyes, and makes us think about the illegal immigration situation and how we as a nation should deal with it. That’s a lot for a film to deliver.