SuckerNaughtReviews: Visiting Rights

Looking at Deportation and Drum Circles With a Subtle Eye
by Morgan P Salvo

The Visitor is tough to categorize. On one hand it’s a straightforward story of a lonely guy who finds meaning in life and on the other it’s so deadpan and simple that it makes you remember why they make movies because real life depicted as real life can be boring.

The movie stars Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) as Walter Vale, a withdrawn forlorn professor gliding thru life in isolated emotional pain. Jenkins (an underrated actor) proves to be absolutely proficient in this role, broadening his range to new heights or in this case, lows. Gone are his usual comedic wise-cracking and/or witty flamboyance.

Plot: aforementioned depressed professor tries to illuminate his life through music but is unable to satisfy his needs in any endeavor. He is sent from Connecticut to New York City to give a lecture, and visits the apartment building he owns to find a couple of illegal immigrants, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira) living there. He reluctantly befriends them and his life begins to change. Tarek plays an African conga-drum and entices the prof into giving it a whirl. Next thing we know Walter’s practicing, beating the darn thing while wearing his underpants. Soon they are playing in a drum-circle in Washington Square Park. Trouble ensues in a subway when cops apprehend and arrest Tarek for supposedly jumping a turnstile. The rest of the movie is the slow-burn-saga of Walter trying to come to grips with saving someone else’s life, therefore saintly redeeming his own. The film’s tricky title will provoke discussion as to who’s the visitor: Walter charting new territory or Tarek whose immigration status is challenged.

The Visitor provides a good glimpse into the creepy deportation system and the red-tape evil therein. The storyline explores topics of terrorism, racial profiling and human nature but is really a microscopic study of Walter coming to grips doing the right thing. Walter’s introversion soon becomes neutralized thanks to the people and cultures entering his life. Tarek’s mom (Hiam Abbass, in superb performance) befriends Walter in tender scenes that are almost as painful as they are endearing to watch. Their desperate loneliness and gut-wrenching pain are just underneath the surface; scratch them and they will bleed their emotions all over the carpet. In fact all four main characters possess unruly kindness.

The acting throughout is outstanding but the dialogue is stilted causing some touching moments to suffer by the drawn out way it’s presented, taking you out of the moment. There’s too much explaining from the characters to each other of information you’ve just witnessed onscreen. Sometimes it’s so realistic that you can’t tell if the long pauses and wooden dialogue are too normal for their own good. Parts of it really got on my nerves. This kind of inane conversation only works in horror movies to create realistic tension when danger lurks. Maybe we’re supposed to intellectualize the bleak communications, but I just found it tedious. It’s irritating enough to finish people’s sentences for them in real life let alone in movies. Someone finally acknowledges Walter as being very cool, but I think just like this movie, it will depend on your definition of how cool. He definitely gets better. The Visitor’s a first-class character study but I’m not sure how engrossing and compelling a movie it makes. Throughout the depressing gusts of eye-blinking angst, it’s almost too nice and sparse for its own intentions.