The Visitor

The Visitor tells the story of an economics professor (Richard Jenkins) who to New York City to attend a conference and finds a young illegal immigrant couple (from Senegal and Syria) living in his old apartment. He decides to be kind to them and let them stay there while he attends the conference. As a widower he has found himself lonely for over 20 years and admittedly crawls through life without doing anything important, only trying to look busy. His only attachment to his wife, a talented pianist, is trying to make use of his piano by taking lessons and trying to hear her music through his fingers. After going through many different piano teachers, he finds it frustrating that he can't improve at all. He has no human concern for the likeness of others as he shows no sympathy for his students or co-workers. The first sign of attachment the professor, Walter has seen in years, maybe decades is when he shows interest in his immigrant friend, Tareek (Haaz Sleiman), playing the drums. He sees that the rhythm of the African drum is something that he can express his beat through and the two start to gain a relationship.

Tareek is mistakenly caught jumping the rail at the subway and then arrested, which as the movie suggests is because of racial profiling. He is then sent to an immigration prison where Walter becomes the only catalyst for communication between Tareek, his girlfriend Zainab and eventually his mother, who travels into the city to be a near source of comfort. Walter becomes emotionally attached to the situation and does all he can to get Tareek out of prison. Many tiny elements of social commentary are placed in the film (although director and writer Thomas McCarthy did not intend for this film to be a social commentary, more of a character-based drama) it has become one of the greatest social statements of the real lives of immigrants, racial profiling and the treatment of foreigners, even people under strict, inhumane policies.

Walter begins to see much more clearly and notice those around him because of his found relationship in a friend and a blossoming romance in Tareek's mother, who he takes to a Broadway play that she has only dreamed of seeing in reality, The Phantom of the Opera. She even notices at one point what I believe to be a metaphor that Walter has new glasses, which represents not only the literal meaning that he has now decided to present himself better because he cares more about the people around him but also that he has new eyes to see the world clearly, with a new found sympathy and contempt for the people around him.

Tareek's girlfriend sells crafted necklaces on the street market and when a rich white woman asks her where shes from (Senegal), she states that she visited Cape Town last year (which is on the other side of the continent) and a manifestation to the viewer that there are people who not only view all of Africa as one, same culture, but also that when people travel to a place, they assume they can identify with the culture/people. So often is travel misrepresented in resorts and tours. One can never identify with a culture, only learn to appreciate it more and more.

Assuming that the reader has not seen the film, I will not reveal the ending, however I will say that the ending is typical of what happens in hundreds of cases throughout the country as immigrants are separated from their lives, family and friends. The film illustrates that it is easy to frown upon immigrants and the amount that exist when you merely look at numbers. It is easy to write policies when you are detached in an office with no human reach. However, the reality is that when you put a face, even a story to even one of the millions that exist across America it changes your story and theirs. In Us debates they talk of immigrants as objects and literally brush around the topic as if they are chess pieces with no resistance to their hands. This film puts a face and a story to what policy and stereotypical governments can do to real people as if they were numbers or chess pieces. Tareek is ripped away from everything he loves most, without any fair reason or treatment. It is true that illegal immigrants are trespassing, and there is much policy that is required, but does the government really have to treat them like prisoners, especially just because of the color of their skin?

CONSENSUS:

Rotten Tomatoes give this move a 92% rating

Zoom In Analysis will AGREE with this rating

As Jeffrey Anderson put it The Visitor, "Dabbles in messages and liberal guilt, but more importantly, it sets up a reasonable and genuine space for a fascinating and heartbreaking character." Richard Jenkins gives a near-perfect performance in a story that reveals its facts through a natural momentum, nothing seemed forced as the film simply walked through life and unexpected circumstances and relationships happen to the viewer as seamless as the character Walter in the film itself. The viewer is left wondering and hoping that such a profound experience, so everyday, could happen to them as we continue to interact as a human race instead of within the race of our skin. If you enjoy this movie I beg you to watch the greatest, most heart-felt movie I have ever seen (in my top 50 of all time) with immigration as a major theme called In America.