Thursday, May 1, 2008

Movie review: The Visitor

How far would you go to help a friend?

By John P. Meyer

The Visitor

In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life. A college professor becomes embroiled in the lives of a young immigrant couple living in New York City and stumbles into an unexpected romance as a result. As these strangers struggle to deal with their individual lives in a changed world, their shared humanity is revealed in awkward, humorous and dramatic ways.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on The Visitor

The Visitor follows the exploits of Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins), a cloistered academician whose wife has died, leaving him alone in his once-comfortable, now-echoing Connecticut two-story tudor. While going through the motions of teaching a rote curriculum to a stream of anonymous privileged students, Walter has settled into a life of ennui and quiet despair. He feels useless, but he's not quite ready to surrender to utter depression.

When he's leveraged by the department head into attending a conference and delivering a speech in New York City, Walter makes the short trip, climbs the stairs to the flat he keeps for such purposes and lets himself in. But something feels odd about the place, and he begins to notice things out of place - not to mention new things he's never seen before. When he discovers a young woman (Danai Jekesai Gurira, as Zainab) in his bathtub, a confrontation ensues as her boyfriend (Haaz Sleiman, as Tarek) appears at the front door, ready to repel a criminal intruder.

But when Walter shows them his key and convinces them that he's the property's rightful owner, they come to understand that an unscrupulous real estate agent has sub-let the place to them without Walter's knowledge or permission. Packing up their few belongings, the immigrant couple apologizes to Walter and takes their leave.

As he watches Zainab and Tarek walking away through his window, Walter experiences an unaccustomed spark of humanity - it's as if, when confronted with first-person human need, his antiseptic, academic notions about the cosmic rules of order are outweighed by the plight of a young couple adrift in the city with nowhere to spend the night.

So he runs out into the street and stops them, suggesting that they stay with him until they can make other arrangements. After a bit of half-hearted protest, they agree.

Walter and Tarek do the Afrobeat thing

Tarek, it turns out, is a musician - an African drummer - and while Walter has been attempting to learn classical piano (emulating the career of his deceased spouse), the undertaking has proven totally unsatisfying. Since Tarek has a spare drum, Walter begins learning the traditional rhythmic stylings of Afrobeat and discovers a new means of creative expression and a possible route to virtuosity. Tarek encourages Walter through the initial rough spots, proving to be an excellent instructor. The two become fast friends.

Walter cruises through his academic presentation (he clearly could do it with one cerebral hemisphere tied behind his back). Becoming increasingly passionate about drumming, he accompanies Tarek on outings around the city to meet with and perform with other drummers.

It's on one of these outings that Tarek is stopped by police in the subway; they soon discover he's undocumented and take him away despite Walter's protests of his innocence. Tarek ends up in an anonymous-looking warehouse-like holding facility run by the coldly-efficient and functionally impenetrable USCIS.

Though Walter does everything he can to extricate his new friend, once enmeshed in the processing gears of the anonymous Homeland Security bureaucracy, Tarek's fate is sealed. Walter quickly learns that one can't treat an institution as if it were a reasoning, feeling human being.

While Tarek remains in holding, his mother (Hiam Abbass, as Mouna) arrives from their Syrian home to be with - or at least closer to - her son. She and Walter share the apartment as Walter's hired attorney does all he can to gain Tarek's release. But concepts of habeas corpus are as alien to the USCIS as little green men - and here I refer to those without the proper docs.

As I've just proven, it's difficult to do justice to The Visitor via verbal description. This is one of those wonderful, totally uncategorizable films that must be seen to be appreciated. Its primary beauty lies in its character interplay and the uncommon grace with which the film's writer/director - Tom McCarthy - approaches such a controversial and life-destroying government policy.

I was fortunate enough to arrange interviews with both Richard Jenkins (at SXSW) and Tom McCarthy (at AFI Dallas) - you can listen in on those podcasts here and here.

AFROBEAT ADVICE: "With a drum you have to remember not to think. Thinking screws it up." - Tarek

LIVING ON ARAB TIME?: "All Arabs are late by an hour - it's genetic." - Tarek

LOOKS CAN BE (INTENTIONALLY) DECEIVING: "It doesn't look like a prison." - Mouna

"I think that's the point." - Walter

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