At the Movies: The Visitor
At a time of the year where we are waving goodbye to holidaying visitors (or to our relieved hosts), the Village Theatre has slotted in a thoughtful wee portrayal of an isolated man profoundly affected by his unexpected-and initially unwanted-guests.
Easily dismissed as dull at first glance, this understated American tale about young immigrants, set amid post-9/11 US suspicion of anything foreign, is quietly moving and has found critical favour worldwide.
Connecticut professor Walter Vale is a bland academic living in a world with no passion, joy or effective human contact. Music provides his only interest, but his ability to play is limited and his patience for music teachers nonexistent.
Asked to travel to his one-time New York home to present a paper, he at first refuses, but relents and arrives to find his city flat occupied by two homeless immigrants. Though young and likeable, the Syrian Tarek and his Senegalese girlfriend Zainab are duly ejected, but Walter uncharacteristically relents and invites them to stay. The drummer and jeweller begin to relax, snippets of their history emerge, a friendship with Walter develops, and colour and drum lessons enter his empty world.
When Tarek is arrested and detained after a simple misunderstanding, the realities of illegal immigrants, detention centres and bureaucratic insensitivity unfold and the newly important elements in Walter's life continue to draw him back from his emotionless wasteland.
Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under, Burn After Reading) excels at playing slightly flawed but basically OK individuals whose goals and desires-family, love, etc-seem just out of reach. There's something in his presence that encapsulates the repressions and frustrations of the ordinary man. As Walter, Jenkins excels but takes a back seat to the more luminous cast members, Danai Gurira as Zainab, Haaz Sleiman as Tarek, and Hiam Abbass as Tarek's mother. All three are engaging, leaving the viewer hungry for more of their personal stories when the filmmakers opt to move the plot onward rather than expand on their characters.
Jenkins has gained several award nominations for this performance, and writer/director Thomas McCarthy (The Station Agent) chose the character actor deliberately. "I wanted someone who wasn't a traditional leading man in the role. I didn't want a movie star, so you start to look at the next level of actors," he said in one interview. Immigration issues are an inevitable part of daily life in New York, he added. "I'm really trying to set this movie now and show a realistic appraisal of a young person's experience in the city having arrived here from another country...It happens every day and people have to deal with it. And you know what? Life goes on."
The story is good, the script is good, and the result heart-warming despite an absence of happy-ever-afters, but there's still satisfaction in this. The Visitor is credible, respectful and not unlike life as many of us know it; the rewards gained are in the journey rather than at the destination.
Maria Polglase
THE VISITOR (M) 1h 46m. USA DRAMA. Next screening at the Village Theatre, Monday 12 January at 8.00pm.
