AFI Dallas International Film Festival - ‘The Visitor’

(USA, 2007, 108 mins)

Directed By: Tom McCarthy

Director Tom McCarthy’s outstanding sophomore effort, The Visitor, is an illuminating and superbly crafted film about disparate people forming familial bonds that inspire an emotional rebirth in a lonely widower.

Walter Vale has withdrawn from life since his wife died. When he must attend a conference on globalization in Manhattan, he goes to his seldom-used apartment in the city and frightens a young couple who have been living there illegally, Tarek, a Syrian man, and his lover, Zainab, from Senegal. Seeing that the couple has nowhere to go, Walter softens and invites them to stay, and a friendship blossoms. One day, Tarek has a chance encounter with the police and is detained. Since Zainab cannot visit Tarek at the immigration detention center, she turns to Walter for help. When he decides to help his new friends, Walter begins a journey toward personal and emotional revival.

McCarthy's simple and precise direction elicits wonderfully nuanced performances from a talented cast led by Richard Jenkins.

Information from the AFI website