THE VISITOR (USA,2007)Wednesday, 18th March 2009Mini Season Presentation - Not part of the main season.
Directed by Tom McCarthy from his own screenplay. Photography (Technicolor): Oliver Bokelberg.
Music: Jan A. P. Kaczmarek. Length: 106 mins. With: RICHARD JENKINS (Professor Walter Vale), HIAM ABBASS (Mouna), HAAZ SLEIMAN (Tarek), DANAL GURIRA (Zainab).
Oscar nominated Richard Jenkins is superb as a widower in his 60s re-engaging with life after a visit to New York has unexpected developments.
“Richard Jenkins gives a subtly nuanced, deeply moving performance. He’s magnificent” – Ph
The Visitor written and directed by Thomas McCarthy who was praised earlier for his first film The Station Agent. The new work opens in Connecticut where the central character, Walter Vale, teaches economics at a college but the story soon switches to New York where Vale owns an apartment. One of the striking things about The Visitor is the fact that it is Vale, a widower in his sixties, who is the centre of focus. Few films would give such a figure this degree of prominence but McCarthy is an independent film-maker and not somebody who is part of the Hollywood machine. He adopts an unhurried pace, throws in welcome touches of humour (although his story is serious) and is clearly a man who is fond of people. No surprise, then, that his film emerges as a strongly humane work as it shows the path by which a lonely and somewhat withdrawn man re-engages with life. The way in which this happens is linked to Vale’s unhappy discovery that his rarely visited New York apartment is occupied. A con-man has moved in and, claiming to be the owner, has let it to a foreign couple. Walter naturally wants them out but then through a shared interest in music starts to warm to them. Plot developments bring in the mother of one of his lodgers and this is the role played by Hiam Abbass. The film becomes a comment on a social issue better not disclosed in advance but it is perhaps most memorable as a portrait of a man regaining his humanity through involvement with others. All the players in The Visitor are terrific, but none more so than Richard Jenkins who was Oscar nominated for his performance as Walter. Up against more famous names as best actor, it was obvious that he would not win, but Phillip French declared in The Observer that in his opinion it was Jenkins who deserved to win.
