“The Visitor” is initially predictable. The instant its downbeat central character decides to let a cheery stranger and his girlfriend live with him you know his life will light up.
But the blue skies turn overcast, and the good times you could see a mile away dissipate. There is zero visibility but the promise of surprise — surprise to be moved both by what you anticipate and what you don’t.
Written and directed by Tom McCarthy (“The Station Agent”), “The Visitor” introduces Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) as a long-faced Connecticut College economics professor. His wife, a well-known classical pianist, has died, and he’s miserable. He finds no comfort in the piano lessons he’s started taking — even though the resplendent Marian Seldes is the instructor. Walter suffers from the sort of depression that leads to prematurely terminated office hours and a moribund intellect — his syllabus is 20 years old.
Walter is dispatched to speak at a global economics conference in Manhattan, where for years he’s kept a nice, tidy apartment that, unbeknownst to him, is now occupied by a couple — Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira). Tarek is the happiest Syrian in the world. Zainab is from Senegal.
They’re both beautiful. How they moved into Walter’s home is complicated and also vague. But they apologize, pack up and leave.
I knew I liked this movie when a single cut shows Tarek and Zainab back in Walter’s apartment. McCarthy could have shown us Walter changing his mind and the three of them trudging back to his place. But the vagueness of their return is actually beautiful in its simplicity. It says a lot without the characters having to say anything.
Tarek plays African drums in the park and in restaurants as part of a band, and in a matter of a few scenes, the professor becomes a student of rhythm. The bond between the two men is as you expect: The white American discovers he has a soul, the Arab guy keeps his temporary home.
But when Tarek is arrested and detained, “The Visitor” turns another emotional corner.
Jenkins brings all his saltiness and comic solemnity to bear on this film. Although Jenkins is best known for the seasons he spent as the dead patriarch on “Six Feet Under,” for years he’s been the movies’ best-kept secret.
In a sense, “The Visitor” is about the global econ professor bonding with the illegals, but the movie’s not a tract. It’s really about how people can come into our lives, change them, and leave.
This is a film of our times — paranoid, heartbroken, disillusioned — and the rare recent American movie whose characters react the way actual people might. It also draws a crucial distinction between good expectations and bad. Movies are predictable.
Life is not.
“The Visitor”
PG-13 for brief strong language. 1 hour, 48 minutes. Written and directed by Thomas McCarthy; photography by Oliver Bokelberg; starring Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira and Marian Seldes. Opens today at the Chez Artiste.
