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| ‘The Visitor’ takes a trip down immigration lane (A-) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Craig Outhier, Get Out | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| April 17, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Instead, this enormously affecting, thought-provoking drama does it the smart way — by seducing us with sympathetic characters and compelling scenarios, then holding all of it in escrow until we whip out the checkbook. It’s a vigorously heartfelt film about the necessity of culture, and the rare big-screen polemic that manages, quite elegantly, to close the deal. It’s also one of those welcome projects that invites a talented character actor — in this case, Richard Jenkins, to shine in a lead role. As Walter Vale, a grief-worn widower who befriends and champions a pair of young Muslim aliens, Jenkins turns his trademark, drawn-down mien into an unforgettable profile of transformation. To be sure, Walter — a tenured, middle-aged economics professor — has become something of a higher-education zombie. He ignores his students. He skips meetings. He lazily recycles his syllabi. “I haven’t done any actual work in a long time,” he shamefully confesses later, while in New York to present a paper that he co-wrote in name only. Writer-director McCarthy — taking a firmer dramatic posture after the surreal, skipping lightness of his debut feature, “The Station Agent” (2003) — obliges the audience to imagine Walter as he was before his world deflated (in a sweet but fruitless attempt to connect with his dead wife, a concert pianist, he takes piano lessons himself). And that’s the difference between Walter and, say, Dennis Quaid’s soul-sick, dead-wife-grieving professor in the recent comedy “Smart People.” A credibility of character. Arriving in New York City, Walter is shocked to find jazz-fusion drummer Tarek (Haaz Sleiman, hugely endearing) and his bashful African girlfriend, Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira), living in his mothballed apartment — but not half as shocked as the squatters themselves, who rented it from a scam artist in good faith. In a rogue gesture of kindness, Walter lets the desperate couple stay in the apartment. Intrigued by Tarek’s Afro-beat musicianship, he takes drum lessons from the affable Syrian. “The Visitor” could have made a simple, swell little slice-of-life about music and friendship if McCarthy, in conspiring to have the undocumented Tarek arrested and held in immigration limbo by the government, hadn’t aimed for something more invasive and, ultimately, satisfying. For while Tarek’s deportation nightmare is sad, it chiefly serves to enhance Walter as somebody we understand. REVIEW ‘The Visitor’ Cast: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Jekesai Gurira Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Thomas McCarthy Rating: PG-13 (brief strong profanity), 108 minutes grade: A- Contact Craig Outhier by email, or phone (480) 898-5683 |
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