The TV Addict 

Todd McCarthy apparently has never heard of the sophomore slump, as his second film THE VISITOR is just as good as his first, THE STATION AGENT, which means something coming from me as I consider the latter to be one of my favorite movies ever.

Richard Jenkins – in a beautiful, deceivingly simple Oscar worth performance – plays Walter Vale, an Economics professors in Connecticut whose life has stagnated. A widower, who has spent twenty years teaching the same course, Walter is one of those people whose been stuck in a rut so long that he doesn’t even know it, unaware of the indifference, apathy, and gruffness with which he greets the world around him. When he travels to New York City to present a paper and arrives in his rarely-used apartment, he is shocked to find a Syrian drummer named Tarek (an impressive performance from Haaz Sleiman), and his Senegalese girlfriend, Zainab (Danai Gurira), living there, scammed by a supposed friend. When Walter agrees to let them stay till they can get settled elsewhere, he gradually emerges from his shell, gently encouraged by the compassion and friendliness of Tarek who seems to instinctively sense that Walter is a man unconsciously longing for more, but simply not sure how to go about realizing his desires. However, as Walter and their friendship bloom, Tarek is unjustly arrested and it turns out that both he and Zainab are in America illegally.

Many films at this point would step up onto a soapbox at this point and start preaching, but THE VISITOR avoids that. Yes, it does have political undertones, and has its fair share to say about immigrant/deportation policy in post 9/11 United States, but it remains ancillary to the film’s more human interests. It never strays from being a sweet, lingering, human story that involves watching Walter delicately emerge from the cocoon of his stagnant life with the gentle cajoling power of human compassion and friendship, and rediscover the long dormant pulse of his life and quicken it.

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Here’s an exclusive clip from Tom McCarthy’s, THE VISITOR, the much anticipated follow-up to one of my favorite films of all time, THE STATION AGENT. You can check out the full trailer over here.
THE VISITOR opens in limited release April 11th, and goes wide on April 18th.

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