The Visitor

The story of widowed academic, Walter (Richard Jenkins) disaffected from his work, and seeking some kind of connection with his late wife - a classical pianist. He goes to his rarely visited flat close to a conference he's attending in New York and discovers it has been unwittingly and illegally occupied by Syrian Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Senegalese girlfriend Zainab. Walter allows the couple to remain (I found that slightly unbelievable - you walk into your own flat and enter your bathroom containing a naked stranger having a bath who screams prompting her boyfriend to pin you to a wall, but you then naturally welcome them both, befriend them and let them stay). Anyway, Tarek teaches Walter the drums (not your classical timpani or rock drumkit) and the two of them become buddies. Then Tarek is arrested for a minor charge on the subway and he turns out to be illegally in America (as well as in Walter's flat). He is sent to a detention centre and his mother turns up from Michigan and Walter and she become emotionally entangled. The film is a bit preachy, there is overuse of ironic symbolism - notices in the detention centre waiting room proclaiming the postive gains of immigration, the statue of liberty, etc. Perhaps this is a theme that is done better in the UK, but there were moments of entertainment and enjoyment here, and fortunately sentimentality and mawkishness were avoided, for once. Rating? 6/10