The Visitor
Thomas McCarthy/ United States of America / 2007 / 103 mins

Starring: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira, Hiam Abbass, Marian Seldes, Maggie Moore, Micheal Cumpsty

Website: http://www.participate.net

              http://www.thevisitorfilm.com/

Walter has long since given up on life. He's an academic who's been recycling courses for so many years he's practically forgotten why he does what he does. He spends his evenings with a lot of red wine, classical music and retirement home levels of interaction with anyone else. So when he's forced to present a paper in New York and return to the apartment he keeps but has not visited in years he's astounded to find it's being lived in by Tariq, a Syrian drummer, and his girlfriend Zainab, a Senagalese jewellery designer.

For Walter it's not only a shock but an opportunity to turn his very ordered life into one totally dictated by chance, fate and serendipity. Which takes him to some places no amount of Global Policy and Development Conferences could have taken him.

Richard Jenkins (best known for his role as the dead dad in Six Feet Under) is superb as Walter, a man who, at first, only sparks up when he's peppering his monotonous but privileged existence with occasional bursts of quiet unpleasantness. As he gradually opens up and begins building relationships with his new and unlikely squatters/friends - and the tremendously tender and proud Mouna (Hiam Abbass) - Jenkins brilliantly keeps those changes in Walter gradual, believable and subtle.  Making a, it must be said, somewhat implausible opening situation significantly more credible are Haaz Sleiman (as Tariq) and Danai Gurira (as Zainab), surely two of the most attractive and pleasant illegal sub-letters you could ever wish to meet. Sleiman is particularly likable as Tariq, something that makes the complications that soon enter his life so much more personal and involving whilst Tariq's drumming, along with Walter's love of classical music, gives the movie it's ever present - though ever changing - musical heartbeat. 

As in McCarthy's debut film, The Station Agent, this is a beautifully observed picture of an outsider adapting to the world he has grown suspicious of. It is a film not afraid to take it's time and to keep even dramatic moments focused on the personal. Unlike his first film though The Visitor is overtly political in tone aiming itself squarely at the immigration and anti-terror legislation in the US. It is rarely heavy handed with the politics (though being set in New York references to the Twin Towers, albeit delicate ones, are inevitable and stand out) and McCarthy does not merely focus on the political issues and conflicts of the US but, more notably, there is also some deft interweaving of well meaning gestures that belie the fact that even educated citizens of Tariq and Zainab's adopted home can lack some important knowledge of the world.

This is a funny, moving and rich film with a real and passionate message at its heart. In The Visitor Thomas McCarthy has again proved himself to be both a great expert in unexpected casting but also a marvellous writer-director with his own unique perspective on isolation, friendship, happiness and the casual disregard of mainstream society for many of it's inhabitants.  It he keeps making films of this calibre you should regard any new release of his an unmissable treat!

Reviewed by Nicola Osborne.