A Moving and Touching Gem

"The Visitor"
Starring: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Jekesai Guirira
***.5/****

"The Visitor" is an honest film about a man breaking out of his shell at the age of 62 and experiencing a re-awakening of his soul. Richard Jenkins who has played the traditional supporting actor for most of his career finally gets his own role to show audience how good he actually is.

Jenkins plays career Economics Professor Walter Vale, a 20 year man at Connecticut College. Walter is a widower who has recently taken up piano lessons to fill the voids of time in his day. Walter also likes to drink wine, and not grant late turn-in assignments from his students. One could say this is a crusty old man, mad at the world or even at himself.

Walter is soon assigned to go to New York and speak at a conference on behalf of a paper he co-wrote with another colleague. Walter sets himself up in his own apartment, one he hasn't stayed at for years. Instead of checking in for a few days and flying back home, Walter is startled by an immigrant couple living in his apartment.

The couple agrees to leave Walter and his apartment alone after he proves hes the rightful owner. They had been given a place to stay by a friend not knowing Walter or any tenant would soon re-appear.

Walter soon opens his home back to the couple, not knowing the effect they will have eventually have on him. Having failed with the piano, Tarek teaches Walter how to play the African drum, Walter takes a deep likening to this as he and Tarek bond over music and the fact they they're truly enjoying each other as friends in a post 9/11 world.

A misunderstanding eventually occurs that puts Tarek in a detention center. The film then explores upon the treatments of immigrants after 9/11. While the film isn't preachy, the messages are clear, but aren't over-bearing.

The characters are real, genuine, decent, and caring. Walter goes through changes, subtle at first, but life changing and re-assuring by the end. This is what makes "The Visitor" not only a film about character depth and the world today, but about finding ones identity, meaning, and place in the world.