The Visitor
(Tom McCarthy):
Richard Jenkins, Hiam Abbass, Danai Gurira, Marian Seldes.
Running time: 103 minutes
Tom McCarthy’s second film after The Station Agent is an intelligent, understated drama about a Scrooge-like academic who awakens again to life. But this being from Jeff Skoll’s Participant Productions, the upbeat message is spiked with reprove.
Walter (Richard Jenkins), a widowed, ivory-towered professor, winds up in the same flat as a muslim couple: there’s wary Zainab (Marian Seldes), a Senegalese woman who makes earrings, and cheery arab Tarig (Danai Gurira) who plays the djemba. Walter is fascinated.
Tarig shows him how to play, but is then arrested and imprisoned to await deportation. The film thrums with the patter of Afro-beat, as Walter finds again a rhythm for life. Jenkins is terrific as the stolid egghead: you can almost see the blood reflow through those icy veins. When he learns again how to feel and he loses his temper, it is with the immigration system, which proves cold and answerable to no one.
McCarthy is keen to underline what he sees as a certain hypocrisy, with references to the Statue of Liberty and the American flag. He avoids a sentimental turn, even when he introduces Tarig’s mother Mouna (Haaz Sleiman) into the story. Her burgeoning love story with Walter sparks softly and quietly, like kindling.
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