The Visitor

I am pleased to return to film reviewing with a strong recommendation, for this second film from writer-director Tom McCarthy -- The Station Agent was his first, and as an actor he’s familiar as Templeton the sleazebag reporter in season five of The Wire. Nothing surprising happens in this story of an aging professorial widower, whose life is revived when he returns after a long absence to his pied-a-terre in Greenwich Village and discovers it inhabited by a young Muslim couple, illegal immigrants from Syria and Senegal respectively -- but the film continually surprises in the justice of its quiet observation. It unfolds without underlining. Much of the subtlety is in the performance of Richard Jenkins, a familiar character actor who makes the most of his chance at a starring role. He is matched by Hiam Abbass as the woman who reawakens his soul, completing the work begun by her son, a friendly Syrian drummer who restarts the beat of the older man’s heart by teaching him to play the djembe. The charming young musician is snatched by immigration officials when he gets hung up in a subway turnstile, and is sent to a featureless holding facility in Queens, until he can be deported. Neither his girlfriend, a lovely black woman who sells her jewelry at street fairs, nor his mother can visit him without risking detention themselves, so the disheartened econ prof has to become the go-between that holds them together. This quartet makes for an involving chamber piece set within the great symphony of the city, and the even larger music of a globalized world. This is a film with heart and smarts, that does not oversell its message. (2008, dvd, n.) *8+* (MC-79.)