The Visitor

Thomas McCarthy has made two movies in the last few years, and the main character in them is almost interchangeable.  This is not a bad thing.   Played by Peter Dinklage in “The Station Agent” and Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor,”  he’s an extremely introverted man, but not a misanthrope.  He is passionate about his hobbies and kind, loyal, and generous with his friends, though never demonstrative.   McCarthy writes this character so well, so convincingly, consistently and unfailingly, one wonders if it’s what he’s like himself.

In “The Visitor,” Jenkins is an economics professor who has lost interest in his life.   His wife has passed away.  He teaches the same course each year, hardly bothering to change the date on the syllabus.  He is forced to go to a conference in New York to read a paper he didn’t write.   He finds an immigrant couple squatting in his apartment: a lively but polite Syrian(Haaz Sleiman) and his more reserved and nervous Senegali girlfriend(Danai Gurira.)   Sleiman plays the Djembe in clubs; Gurira sells jewelry at a street market.    When it is clear that they have nowhere to go, Jenkins (because he’s an introvert but not a misanthrope) allows them to stay with him.

Jenkins is intrigued by the Sleiman’s drum.  His wife was a classical pianist, and he’s been trying to learn to play the piano since she passed, but it isn’t taking.   The Djembe seems an odd instrument for a middle aged, middle class, white man to pick up, so he’s a bit skittish about his interest.   Sleiman isn’t, and enthusiastically begins to teach him how to play, takes him to drum groups, and give him CDs to listen to.   And, wouldn’t you know it, an unlikely friendship develops.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bff6L_jZhuY]

But just when “The Visitor” starts to feel like old hat (Young Poor Foreigner Teaches Old Rich White Guy How to Have Soul) it takes a turn into contemporary politics.   Well, not politics exactly.   Sleiman and Gurira are illegal, and Sleiman gets picked up by police in the subway.   And throughout the rest of the movie, Jenkins, Gurira and Sleiman’s mother(Hiam Abass) visit him, fight for him, and try to understand what is happening with him.

This ought to feel terribly, frantically political, akin to last year’s “Rendition.”   But McCarthy keeps his focus on the characters and their subtly evolving relationships.   Gurira and Abass are both illegal as well, so they can’t visit Sleiman in the correctional facility.   Jenkins can, and takes him letters they have written, which he holds up to the glass partition and looks away while Sleiman reads them.   Sleiman asks him if he is practicing his drum, and he beats out a rhythm on the table.   Every last second of this movie is about people, not politics.   A romance begins – slowly, uncertainly – to bloom between Jenkins and the beautiful Abass; she cooks him supper and he takes her to see a Broadway show.
The politics of “The Visitor” are clear, but quiet, like its characters.   Simply put, there are places in the world where people can disappear for saying, thinking, or writing the wrong thing.   When that happens, their families often flee to safer countries, like America – land of the free.   It goes without saying that they don’t have the proper paperwork .    Before 9/11, they could mostly just fly under the radar.  But since then, they often find themselves living under the same threats they fled from – imprisoned for no crime, incommunicado, moved from facility to facility at random and with no warning, and barely able to defend themselves or even find out what they’re charged with, besides being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Everything about “The Visitor” is internal, methodical, and muted.   I was completely absorbed while watching it, and marveled at how McCarthy presented the viewer with a character’s potential choices – or lack of them – with the same rhythm and rate at which they are presented to the characters.   But I can see how this movie might feel boring to some.   It follows its own trajectory.  There is no climax, no resolution, hardly any “key scenes” or memorable moments.  Everything evolves slowly, and in such a way that it feels inevitable.   This might be the movie’s weakness, or its greatest strength.

Recommended

• for fans of “The Station Agent,” though this is not nearly as funny.
• For anyone who agrees that generally, the best acting in most movies is done by the character actors.
• For people with acute attention spans, willing to let a movie pull you in quietly.

Not Recommended

• to the easily distracted or bored.
• To anyone going through an immigration crisis at the moment.  (I have a friend going through this right now.   I can’t imagine what it’s like to be her.)
• To minutemen, or anyone who really thinks all the illegals in our country should be trucked out immediately, no questions asked or answered.