Who's a visitor here?

By David Germain, Associated Press

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Overture Films

Richard Jenkins as Walter Vale, a 62-year-old widower and economics professor, forms an odd bond with Syrian immigrant Tarek, portrayed by Haaz Sleiman.

As an actor, Tom McCarthy has been a supporting and bit player. As a filmmaker, he has a knack for elevating other gifted supporting actors into lead roles that make the most of their overlooked talents.

In 2003's The Station Agent, it was Peter Dinklage. In The Visitor, writer-director McCarthy presents Richard Jenkins in a rare starring role perfect for the veteran character actor's mix of surface composure and inner agitation.

Once you've seen Jenkins inhabit the sad, compassionate, lonesome yet longing academic at the center of the story, it's impossible to imagine the film without him.

More expansive than The Station Agent, which was a study of three isolated people, The Visitor offers equally rich and full-blooded characters while taking on - not altogether successfully - current themes of immigration and xenophobia in post- 9/11 America.

The title could apply to all four key characters, each of them literally or figuratively having left one life to search for another.

Jenkins' Walter Vale is a 62-year-old widower who has been teaching the same college economics course for 20 years. He has published three books, is idly dabbling at a fourth and is so enervated by the repetition of things that he can't even motivate himself to prepare a new syllabus for the one course he's teaching.

He has tried and failed to fill the void by studying classical piano. Against his will, Walter is sent to a globalization conference in New York, where he has an apartment he and his late wife once lived in.

To his shock, Walter finds Syrian immigrant Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and his Senegalese girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira) living in his apartment, thinking they had legitimately rented it. (Their "landlord" was a con artist who knew the place was unoccupied.)

Whether out of kindness or desperate loneliness, Walter allows Tarek and Zainab to remain for a day or two, which quickly lengthens to an indefinite stay as an odd bond forms between them.

Walter's tedious days at the economics conference are juxtaposed with energetic outings in the company of Tarek, who plays the African djembe drum at a jazz club and at drum circles in a park.

Before long, Walter is joining in, and while he's a raw, hesitant beginner on the drum, it evokes more spirit and passion in him than his awkward piano lessons. The music and atmosphere are vibrant, infectious to the point where you wish you could join in yourself.

In the country illegally, Tarek is pinched by the police and held at a crowded detention center while awaiting deportation, with Walter his steadfast ally on the outside.

Eventually, Tarek's mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), shows up from Michigan wondering why she hasn't heard from him. A touching, if overly convenient, relationship stirs between Walter and Mouna, though McCarthy prevents it from turning to sentimental mush.

As with The Station Agent, The Visitor leaves you uncertain over the characters' futures. McCarthy makes them your friends, and you want to know what happens to them; you hope that they'll be all right.

The story gets heavy-handed in its indictment of the cold, impersonal bureaucracy behind U.S. immigration policy, but McCarthy thankfully avoids preaching too much, keeping the focus on his characters.

The Visitor

A lonely professor and immigrants connect.

* Grade: B

* Rated: PG-13

* Running time: 106 minutes

• April 24, 2008

  7:49 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Brittanicus writes:

  It has no relevence to the 12 to 30 million illegal immigrant invasion of our nation. No matter where you come from on this planet, if you entered America without THE PEOPLE'S permission. You must leave or be deported!

  It is guaranteed that either Hillary, Obama or McCain is going to sign into law a devastating AMNESTY. If we enact THE FEDERAL SAVE ACT (H.R.4088) now, we can derail this travesty of our immigration laws. If we do not American workers will be competing for jobs, with between 12 and 30 immigrants. If you do not think this is possible, read the forums, bulletin boards now, that reveal whose been upsurged by illegal foreign nationals.

  BOMB YOUR DEMOCRATS WITH EMAILS OR CALLS, BECAUSE CITIZENS & LEGAL RESIDENTS HAVE A SHORT TIME, BEFORE THE NEW PRESIDENT GIVES A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP TO 12 TO 30 MILLION PEOPLE WHO BROKE OUR LAWS. DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THEIR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN, THEY NEED TO GO HOME.

  Democrats need to think of the massive cost on taxpayers, not that all Republicans are without blame. Many of our politicians are in bed with the special interest groups.

  In California Assemblywoman Mimi Walters, a Republican from Oceanside, said illegal immigrants cost California taxpayers an estimated $9 billion each year.

  Now you can read the disturbing details in the new 70-page document called “The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Immigration” by Edwin S. Rubenstein (eagleforum.org/sources). A Manhattan Institute adjunct academic with a mile-long scholarly resume, he has been doing financial analysis ever since he directed the studies of government waste for the Grace Commission of 1984.

  More than 10 million immigrants have arrived since year 2000; it is estimated that nearly 6 million are illegal. All told, the group of immigrants now account for 38 million at the moment according to the White House's own census bureau.

  America cannot afford to enact another AMNESTY? The ramifications are unthinkable on each states economy? Taxpayers will have to support even more illegal immigrants as the word gets out and millions more will pour into our nation.

  Keep calling your Democratic Congressmen today to co-author THE SAVE ACT! Toll free numbers include 18778516437 and 18662200044, or call toll 12022243121 AND REGISTER YOUR OUTRAGE at ongoing efforts to keep our country from enforcing its immigration laws!

  Please copy and paste or otherwise freely distribute this information.

  YOU CAN PETITION TO COMPLETE THE BORDER FENCE HERE grassfire