The Visitor Review
by Steve Rhodes (steve DOT rhodes AT internetreviews DOT com)April 10th, 2008
THE VISITOR
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2008 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
"This is not fair," says Tarek Khalil (Haaz Sleiman) in his only angry outburst in the entire story. "I am not a criminal!" In a detention facility, while awaiting deportation, he can't believe that he might actually be forced to leave the U.S. He and his mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass), a Palestinian by birth, have been in America for many years.
When we first meet Tarek, he and his wife Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira) are illegal aliens living in New York. Both Muslim, he is from Syria, and she is from Senegal. He makes his living playing African drums in small New York clubs, while she makes jewelry and sells in it on the street.
Tarek is possibly the happiest guy you've ever met. With an infinite reservoir of smiles, he lives his music. His wife, however, is reserved and just a bit fearful. They are illegals living illegally in an apartment owned by Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins), a professor in Connecticut who hardly ever stays in his old New York apartment since his wife passed away. When Walter arrives suddenly, surprising Tarek and Zainab, he invites them to stay with him, even though they were squatting there.
Walter is as terminally sad as Tarek is relentlessly happy. "I haven't done any real work in a long time," he confesses late in the film to Tarek's mother, who has come to be near him. She can't visit him, of course, since she risks being deported too.
Trying without much luck to learn to play the piano, Walter finds that his instrument is the drum. The secret to playing the drums, Tarek explains, is to avoid thinking. Certainly playing the drums beats teaching the same economics course for twenty long years. Walter finds that mindlessly playing the drums is vastly better than mindlessly droning on to his students with the same old lectures.
Dull and depressing, THE VISITOR is the second film by THE STATION AGENT's writer and director Thomas McCarthy. While THE STATION AGENT was slow, it was always sweet, entertaining and completely captivating. In contrast, THE VISITOR is leaden, lethargic and full of heavy-handed symbolism. "The Strength of America ... America's Immigrants," for example, is a large and very intentionally ironic poster on the wall of the detention facility where Tarek is being held. The Statue of Liberty keeps popping up in the movie, which uses it like a cheap stage prop.
Walter's only possible salvation from his terminally unhappy life is through his friendship with the charismatic Tarek. With Walter's government about to deport his only friend, he is at a loss as to how to ever find meaning in his life. The film ends very abruptly, suggesting that the situations that everyone finds themselves in are all quite hopeless.
THE VISITOR runs a long 1:43. It is rated PG-13 for "brief strong language" and would be acceptable for all ages.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 25, 2008 and begins a limited release on Friday, April 11, 2008. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
Email: [email protected]
***********************************************************************
Want reviews of new films via Email?
Just write [email protected] and put "subscribe" in the subject line.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
