David O'ConnellThe Visitor
September 10th 2008 04:59
Tom McCarthy’s sensitive, moving follow-up to his 2003 debut The Station Agent bears more than a few similarities to that underrated film. Working again as writer and director, he once more focuses on a group of displaced people, strangers in a strange land, living with a sense of disconnectedness in their lives, but brought together through circumstance.
Richard Jenkins is economics professor Walter Vale, a man who has gone through the motions for the past 20 years, existing within the repetitive, meaningless cycle of his life rather than living since the death of his pianist wife; Walter himself has tried to learn the instrument without great success.
He’s forced to visit New York from Connecticut to present a paper at a conference only to discover that two people have been living in his rarely used apartment for a couple of months and they mistake him for an intruder at first.
Syrian man Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), and his Senegalese girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira) realize that a friend has mistakenly rented them a place belonging to someone else and they offer to leave peacefully. Walter agrees but feels sympathy for their plight and offers them a place back in his apartment until they can make other arrangements.
He makes an especially strong connection to Tarek who plays African drums on the streets and in clubs, and who begins teaching Walter a few tricks. So withdrawn and detached to this point, Walter seems to free up his soul - his desire for an emotional connection to somebody - and a more fully rounded person, with his love of music slowly renewed as well, begins to flower from this shell of a man.
Their friendship becomes stronger before fate intervenes, with Tarek arrested for virtually no reason whilst in a subway, and with no green card he's soon locked up in the cold confines of a detention centre. Walter feels compelled to help his new friend in any way he can, ignoring the inconvenient call of duty from his other life in Connecticut.
Tarek’s mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), arrives from Michigan, not having heard from her son in a while, and Walter also begins to make a connection with her.
Hard decisions will have to be made however as this poignant film reaches its conclusion and thankfully McCarthy never opts out with easy resolutions for any of his wholly credible and sympathetic characters. The result is a potently human story, full of integrity and perfectly calculated, with the improbable bonds strangers make with one another having the potential to last a lifetime.
Jenkins gives a masterful, beautifully controlled performance, layered with subtle nuances. At first he elicits little sympathy as a hollow, emotionless man who seems to have become desensitized to life. But slowly his humanity emerges and his depths as a person are revealed as his connection to these other ‘visitors’ strengthens with every moment shared with them.
Newcomers Sleiman, and the beautiful Abbass and Gurira, are very good in support, especially Sleiman as the carefree, kind-hearted soul Tarek with his infectious personality, who only wants to live each day to the full with the love of his life and explore the freedom offered to him through his talent for musical expression.
McCarthy’s sensitive screenplay is a magnificent piece of writing, showing how fate can intercede in the lives of the most unlikely friends; it can also provide cruel twists with lives sadly altered by the most innocuous incidents, changing the course of all those caught in its cruel currents.
The plaintive, haunting piano and strings-based score by Oscar-winning Polish composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek is superb, one of his best works since Finding Neverland.
The Visitor surpasses even The Station Agent, raising McCarthy's work to a higher level again. Known predominantly as an actor he's truly enriched cinema with two highly original works as a writer-director. Hopefully he’ll continue to return to working behind the camera every once in a while because this is a beautifully written film, truly must-see cinema.
Here's a trailer for the film:
Richard Jenkins is economics professor Walter Vale, a man who has gone through the motions for the past 20 years, existing within the repetitive, meaningless cycle of his life rather than living since the death of his pianist wife; Walter himself has tried to learn the instrument without great success.
He’s forced to visit New York from Connecticut to present a paper at a conference only to discover that two people have been living in his rarely used apartment for a couple of months and they mistake him for an intruder at first.
Syrian man Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), and his Senegalese girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira) realize that a friend has mistakenly rented them a place belonging to someone else and they offer to leave peacefully. Walter agrees but feels sympathy for their plight and offers them a place back in his apartment until they can make other arrangements.
He makes an especially strong connection to Tarek who plays African drums on the streets and in clubs, and who begins teaching Walter a few tricks. So withdrawn and detached to this point, Walter seems to free up his soul - his desire for an emotional connection to somebody - and a more fully rounded person, with his love of music slowly renewed as well, begins to flower from this shell of a man.
Tarek gives Walter his first African drum lesson
Their friendship becomes stronger before fate intervenes, with Tarek arrested for virtually no reason whilst in a subway, and with no green card he's soon locked up in the cold confines of a detention centre. Walter feels compelled to help his new friend in any way he can, ignoring the inconvenient call of duty from his other life in Connecticut.
Tarek’s mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), arrives from Michigan, not having heard from her son in a while, and Walter also begins to make a connection with her.
Hard decisions will have to be made however as this poignant film reaches its conclusion and thankfully McCarthy never opts out with easy resolutions for any of his wholly credible and sympathetic characters. The result is a potently human story, full of integrity and perfectly calculated, with the improbable bonds strangers make with one another having the potential to last a lifetime.
Jenkins gives a masterful, beautifully controlled performance, layered with subtle nuances. At first he elicits little sympathy as a hollow, emotionless man who seems to have become desensitized to life. But slowly his humanity emerges and his depths as a person are revealed as his connection to these other ‘visitors’ strengthens with every moment shared with them.
Zainab meets Tarek's mother Mouna for the first time
Newcomers Sleiman, and the beautiful Abbass and Gurira, are very good in support, especially Sleiman as the carefree, kind-hearted soul Tarek with his infectious personality, who only wants to live each day to the full with the love of his life and explore the freedom offered to him through his talent for musical expression.
McCarthy’s sensitive screenplay is a magnificent piece of writing, showing how fate can intercede in the lives of the most unlikely friends; it can also provide cruel twists with lives sadly altered by the most innocuous incidents, changing the course of all those caught in its cruel currents.
Walter and Mouna share a moment of joy
The plaintive, haunting piano and strings-based score by Oscar-winning Polish composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek is superb, one of his best works since Finding Neverland.
The Visitor surpasses even The Station Agent, raising McCarthy's work to a higher level again. Known predominantly as an actor he's truly enriched cinema with two highly original works as a writer-director. Hopefully he’ll continue to return to working behind the camera every once in a while because this is a beautifully written film, truly must-see cinema.
Here's a trailer for the film:
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