The Visitor

Released in 2008 by Overture Films, The Visitor has gone largely unnoticed by the general populace.  The film was written and directed by Thomas McCarthy, who’s previous film The Station Agent pointed towards good things. With The Visitor, he cements his talent, crafting a slow-moving realist drama, a contemplation of subjects ranging from culture and art to death and the political atmosphere of post-9/11 New York, all fueled by the beat of a djembe drum.

Walter is a quiet, lonely professor living in the Connecticut suburbs at the beginning of the film. When a colleague asks him to go to New York City and present a paper- the subject of which is never made clear- he is forced to accept. He has reduced his number of classes to one, to give himself time to write a book- the subject of which is also never made clear. He arrives in New York, to his old apartment, and finds two  people living there. Shocked at first, they are more distrustful of him than he of them. Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira) are two immigrants from Syria and Senegal respectively. Walter invites them to stay until they find a place to live.

As Walter is exposed to new foods and customs, it is painfully obvious that he lacks drive or direction with his career. It is revealed that his wife had passed away several years earlier. Tarek plays the djembe in his spare time, and he offers to teach Walter, who gladly accepts. They go to Central Park one day and jam with a drum circle, and Walter cracks his first genuine smile as he assimilates into the pulsing beat. Unfortunately the happiness  is short-lived, as his new friend is halted in the subway by NYPD cops who, with a dash of racial profiling, send him to a deportment facility.

Walter is finally pushed into real action- he goes to the facility, a blank building in the middle of a slum, and tries to help Tarek out as Zainab fears the worst: deportment back to Syria. The bureaucratic entanglements make it nearly impossibly for Walter to help his friend. An immigration lawyer with far too many cases on his hands is unable to offer assistance.

McCarthy makes a point not to sugarcoat anything: cinematography, make-up, and set design all lend the film an almost documentary-like feel, and the plot moves at a pace that quietly mimics the awkwardness of reality. Perhaps most painful is the feeling of helplessness once Tarek is arrested; he is illegally “here”, but what good is “here” if we eliminate a good person such as him with a piece of paper? While straddling the fine line between drama and sermon, The Visitor actually stumbles upon some important human elements of the immigration issue. Much like 2004’s Maria Full of Grace, it puts a face on a  “hot-button” issue.

Also similar to Maria Full of Grace, the film earned an Academy Award nomination for Richard Jenkins (“Best Actor”), which is good because it gave the film some publicity. Jenkins is excellent, but Haaz Sleiman is arguably the greater star, a charismatic Syrian with a sense of resiliency even in the face of ignorance and injustice. Bringing a difficult and easily ignored issue to light, The Visitor is one of the more effective and affecting films of 2008.