Just as he did with The Station Agent, in The Visitor writer-director McCarthy has chosen an atypical leading man and given him a part in which to shine. Character actor Jenkins (whom you’ll recognize as a bit player from countless movies) is sublimely low-key as economics professor Walter Vale, a widower who has fallen into a passionless rut. He speaks in a dull monotone, using as few words as he can. He tries and fails to learn the piano, and desperately needs to find something to be passionate about. Fortunately for Walter, but unfortunately for the audience, he finds that something. Because this is a movie with a message.
Forced to represent his Connecticut university at a conference in New York, Walter returns to his old apartment in the Big Apple and is surprised to find that he has two tenants. Illegal immigrants Tarek (Sleiman) and Zainab (Gurira) have been duped into renting the apartment that actually belongs to Walter.
In an unlikely move, Walter invites the two visitors—from Syria and Senegal—to stay with him. Tarek is all smiles and accommodating charm. Zainab frequently bickers with him, but in an aw-shucks-that’s-cute sort of way. And since Walter has recently become interested in percussion after watching two street performers, Tarek offers to teach him to drum, and the two become fast friends.
All is well until Tarek is arrested for a misunderstanding, and the film reveals itself to be a plea for immigration reform. Now, I’m all for immigration reform, but The Visitor makes a very one-sided and heavy-handed argument. In Michael Moore fashion, the film takes a valid point and wraps it in sensational exaggerations until even the people who already agree with the viewpoint feel manipulated.
By suggesting that all potential deportees are impossibly nice guys arrested for misunderstandings while running errands for their cute girlfriends, McCarthy takes an issue that is neither black nor white and paints it in such a gleaming light that even the people who see the issue in light gray seem naive through mere association.
The Visitor
**
Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira
Directed by Thomas McCarthy
Rated PG-13