Praising The Visitor

email this story
read comments (16)
post a comment

Tom McCarthy's The Visitor (Overture, 4.11 limited) is easily among the best films of the year so far -- right up there with The Bank Job, Young @Heart, Shine a Light, In Bruges, Taxi to the Dark Side and 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days. If I'd been more on my game I would have seen it at last January's Sundance Film Festival, but something obstructed. (I'm telling myself it was the 72-hour flu that got me the night before Heath Ledger was found dead.)

Richard Jenkins, Hiam Abbass

Set mostly in Manhattan, The Visitor is about a dull middle-aged academic (Richard Jenkins) discovering a pair of illegal immigrants (Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira) living in his barely-visited New York City apartment (due to a subletting by a con artist), and how he gradually comes to care for them and help out when Sleiman's character, a Syrian, gets into trouble with the INS.

It's also about the dull bird, who is called Walter Vale, gradually falling for Sleiman's beautiful dark-haired mom (Hiam Abbass) when she visits New York to try and help with her son's situation. The last third of the story is about coping with the threat of a deportation while love gently blooms -- a mixture of Kafka and alpha.

Shot on a shoestring, The Visitor is a modest but fully realized middle-aged love story that's about a lot more than just a man and a woman finding each other. It's about heart and music and beating a native drum. It's also about post-9/11 bureaucratic paranoia, and about the shedding of crusty skin. It's exceptional in the way that it unfolds with elegance and simplicity from start to finish. It touches precisely because it doesn't seem to try all that hard. McCarthy just ladles it out, pouring by pouring.

Haaz Sleiman (top), Jenkins.

And it has two award-quality performances from Jenkins and Abbass that will almost certainly be remembered at year's end. Jenkins' name may not ring a bell, but you definitely know his bald head, lean face and sadly creased eyes. He plays it way down at first -- curt, glum , inexpressive -- but gradually the pores open. His emotionally muffled college professor experiences one of those spiritual growth spurts that small movies specialize in -- ones that enploy just the right amounts of skill and suppressed feeling. Jenkins has achieved the same kind of thing that Peter Reigert managed in Local Hero; ditto Marianne Sagebrecht in Baghdad Cafe.

The Israeli-born Abbass is almost as much of a revelation. She radiates warmth, hurt, sadness, maturity, sensuality.

Almost every critic has fallen for The Visitor, which, of course, means nothing in terms of your average moviegoer wanting to see it or not. The situation is further complicated by the fact that McCarthy's decision to give the lead role to Jenkins, a character actor whose best role before this was the gay FBI agent in Flirting with Disaster, is both an inspiration and a problem.

You know that the Average Joe is going to go "Richard who?" Jenkins has achieved a career triumph here, but Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment he's not. The Visitor isn't that kind of movie, and Walter Vale isn't that kind of role. How interested are you in seeing a love story starring the balding clerk from your local DMV or the manager of the supermarket just down the street? When it comes to stories about older folks scratching that itch, moviegoers tend to respond more easily to middle-aged actors with rascally vigor and charm. And yet what happens in The Visitor really and truly kicks in. You've got to see it to believe it.

Overture is facing an uphill marketing struggle, but The Visitor has the kind of heart and craft that mature moviegoers are always looking for. Here's hoping that the ding-dongs who refuse to read reviews or consider the recommendations of online columnists like myself will at least listen to their friends who will hopefully see The Visitor and tell them to get off their backsides and go. Unless, of course, their friends are just as determined to avoid reading about movies as they are.

This is McCarthy's sophomore effort following '03's The Station Agent, which he also wrote as well as directed. He's a fine actor also. He played the journalist Scott Templeton in The Wire and the dutiful Bradley son in Flags of Our Fathers. Besides his promotional chores on The Visitor, he's currently filming Tony Gilroy's Duplicity.

No Chance in Hell<< previous | next >>McCarthy Chat

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 10, 2008 at 10:41 AM

comment #1

Aguirre says ...

while i don't buy SLANT'S notion of the (elegant and fitting) last shot being stuffed to the gills with "white man's burden," i do feel as if McCarthy doesn't bridge the gap between Vale's persona as a lonely, uninspired widow with the immigrant predicament, of which he soon finds himself witness to a microcosm. for me, what that means was that from the moment tarik's mom shows up the film buckles under the consolidated weight of its tiny failures, as the third act's lack of subtlety and more obvious nature doesn't warrant the 45 minutes its afforded. in other words, i felt it over-compensated for McCarthy's stately and graceful story to that point, the telling of which shoves even the laziest of viewers into a veritable jungle of allegory.

finally, i think the fact that mcCarthy milks the visual of a white-collar white man partaking in traditionally "ethnic" (cough) public activities invites socio-cultural cynics like Ed Gonzalez to cast aspersions over the films successful moments. as for me... i actually enjoyed this film more than THE STATION AGENT, as Vale is an infinitely more interesting character than any of those that appeared in mcCarthy's debut.

Posted by Aguirre at April 10, 2008 2:58 PM

comment #2

Mark says ...

1st off, Flirting w/ Disaster? No, Jenkins is best known telling Stiller that "truck stops are the new gay hangouts." (Though i liked him best in Wolf during the scene he tells Nicolson that his wife was found dead, right after they tell him that Michele P. is his wife.)

2nd, who in god's name wanted to a see love blossom in a Sonoma road movie w/ short balding Bob Zmuda from Man on the Moon?

I'm just saying that the problem can be overcome if the film connects how it should.

Posted by Mark at April 10, 2008 3:03 PM

comment #3

Reedyb says ...

Jenkins is well known to any fans of Six Feet Under.

There's an interview with him about the Visitor here:
http://tinyurl.com/68kza2

Posted by Reedyb at April 10, 2008 3:09 PM

comment #4

Tom Logan says ...

Six Feet Under is what introduced me to Richard Jenkins and i think he's absolutely wonderful.He has such a relaxed and confident on-screen presence that makes him just a joy to watch.
I can't remember reading any reviews of this at Sundance,in fact this is the first time i'd even heard of the project?
Nice suprise.

Posted by Tom Logan at April 10, 2008 3:14 PM

comment #5

BurmaShave says ...

Jesus christ it's the same Tom McCarthy. I had no idea. Awesome as Templeton. THE STATION AGENT is great. Look forward to it. Hope it's true about Jenkins, and I hope Wells keeps beating the drum for him.

Posted by BurmaShave at April 10, 2008 3:15 PM

comment #6

Edward says ...

The trailer Intrigued me enough to make me want to see this; besides I can relate to a film about a middle-aged bald man.

Posted by Edward at April 10, 2008 3:17 PM

comment #7

actionman says ...

Loved The Station Agent and have always loved seeing Jenkins on screen. From There's Something About Mary to The Kingdom, he's always perfect.

I saw the trailer for this film a while back and it does indeed look very solid.

Posted by actionman at April 10, 2008 3:25 PM

comment #8

thatrader says ...

I thought it was easily the worst film at Sundance. Tediously boring with a saccharine score, and a story treading the exact same territory as "The Station Agent," only this time with a beyond simplistic social message.

The film is "How Whitey Got His Groove Back" and curiously enough, the film about an uptight white professor who loosens up when he meets someone, was produced not once, but twice by producer Michael London at Sundance, with "Smart People" being about an uptight white professor who loosens up when his wacky step-brother and Sarah Jessica Parker enter his life, only this time with the uptight white professor played by Dennis Quaid.

Both struck me as incredibly mediocre, but "The Visitor..." Hell, I'm surprised Jeff is praising it because he couldn't be bothered to wait in line for it at the press screening in Sundance.

Posted by thatrader at April 10, 2008 4:31 PM

comment #9

BurmaShave says ...

It's amazing how thatrader can write considering he can't read.

Posted by BurmaShave at April 10, 2008 5:04 PM

comment #10

p.Vice says ...

Missed it at Sundance? Try Toronto.

Posted by p.Vice at April 10, 2008 5:42 PM

comment #11

fielding says ...

Jenkins was great in The Witches of Eastwick.

Posted by fielding at April 10, 2008 7:24 PM

comment #12

rr3333 says ...

Oh my goodness! That's Mr.Jenkins from my 6th grade social studies class!

Posted by rr3333 at April 10, 2008 7:54 PM

comment #13

thatrader says ...

Burma,

I was in line for "The Visitor" screening and saw Wells there. He left because he couldn't believe how long the line was when he got there. No other reason than that.

Burma, next time remove the cock from your mouth before you open it to speak, it's rude to talk with your mouth full.

Posted by thatrader at April 10, 2008 7:59 PM

comment #14

lipranzer says ...

I also remember Jenkins from THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (for that matter, I remember him from SILVERADO, but his role didn't make much of an impression). Whatever you thought of that movie - and I like it a lot, myself - everyone, not just Jack, goes over the top, except for Jenkins, who underplays, and plays a decent man without making him one note. The fact that same actor could turn right around and play broad comic turns in FLIRTING WITH DISASTER and the Farrelly Brothers movies he's been in (not just MARY, but also very funny in ME, MYSELF & IRENE), but also unlikable suits (THE KINGDOM) and bad guys (ABSOLUTE POWER) makes him one to watch.

I avoided THE STATION AGENT for so long because it sounded like would be nothing but saccharine, but it turned out to be genuinely charming and funny. I'm seeing THE VISITOR tomorrow - let's hope it's as good.

Posted by lipranzer at April 10, 2008 9:47 PM

comment #15