Undocumented lovers Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Esi (Danai Gurira)
Director Thomas McCarthy's small and beautifully observed follow-up to his award-winning directorial debut The Station Agent is called The Visitor, and, like its nondescript title, the movie creeps up on you quietly and resonates deeply in ways that contemporary films do all too seldom.
It's about Walter, a middle-aged widower and economics professor (played by the estimable Richard Jenkins) who, isolated and withdrawn from life, returns to his seldom-used Manhattan pied-à-terre only to find living there an undocumented couple: Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian street musician, and his Senegalese lover Esi (Danai Gurira), a wary-eyed jewelry maker.
Initially remote and ambiguous in his intentions, Walter eventually comes to befriend the couple and is brought out of his shell by his and Tarek's shared love of music.
But things become increasingly complex once Tarek is profiled by the police, jailed in a detention center, threatened with deportation and forbidden to communicate with anyone but Walter.
Walter (Richard Jenkins) leads a solitary life.
Without overtly preaching or moralizing, writer-director McCarthy spins his narrative in unexpected directions that powerfully exposes post-9/11 America's disturbing isolationism and the human cost of its so-called "War on Terror."
This quiet, measured, beautifully directed film benefits from a crackerjack performance by the charismatic Sleiman.
Similarly, the fine Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass plays Sleiman's lovely widowed mother with great dignity and poignancy.
But what's most exciting is seeing the great Jenkins, perhaps most familiar from his years on Six Feet Under, really get to strut his stuff in a leading role, an opportunity he aces with surprising flashes of humor and charm, along with the humanity.
Photos: JoJo Whildon/©2008 Visitor Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved.
