The central theme of Tom McCarthy’s top-notch film, The Visitor (2008), is a burnt-out, 62-year old professor recovering his appetite for life when he stumbles upon and befriends two illegal immigrants in his New York apartment. Professor Walter Vale’s (Richard Jenkins) slowly coming out of his shell is handled deftly and does not follow a predictable arc. If you think everyone is going to live happily ever after, you don’t know the realism of director and writer Tom McCarthy’s film. The young Syrian drummer, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), is jovial and charming until a misunderstanding on the subway lands him in a detention center facing deportation. And then things get worse and better simultaneously.
The more high profile theme is the terrible way the Immigration Department treats illegal aliens post-9/11. But here, the argument is skewed and unfair. While the detention center is stark, the immigration officials uncaring bureaucrats, and the entire process gut-wrenching, we only get incomplete glimpses of why, some years ago, Tarek and his mother were not granted refugee status. Tarek’s father spent time in a Syrian prison for something he wrote in his newspaper, and two months after his release, he died. His wife and son went to the USA and asked for refugee status. That’s all we know. There is nothing in that information that would give them a very good chance of being granted refugee status, and they were not. So, yes, many heart-breaking things happen to Tarek and the people around him, and, yes, the Immigration Department looks heartless, but Tarek and his mother probably had a fair hearing that refused them asylum, a probability the film all but buries.
I really liked the film because the characters and their interactions were superbly drawn. But you would not like the film if you don’t like small-scale dramas, or if you cannot identify with a burned-out, old, white, male professor, or if you want a scathing instead of subtle condemnation of “the system,” or if you want an undeniably happy ending. I found the characters memorable and affecting, and I enjoyed spending time with them at a turning point in their lives.