BEST movie I’ve seen so far this year? Hands down, it’s Tom McCarthy’s superb “The Visitor,” which turns Richard Jenkins, one of the best character actors in the business, into a full-fledged star.
Jenkins, who played the ghostly patriarch on “Six Feet Under” and has long been a ubiquitous presence in movies, is touching and ruefully funny as Walter, a lonely college professor whose life is changed by an encounter with illegal aliens.
Barely engaged in life or his job on a Connecticut campus since his wife’s death, he is forced to present a paper on globalization (actually written by a colleague) at a conference at NYU.
That’s when Walter discovers that his long-unused Manhattan pied-a-terre has been rented by a scam artist to Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian drummer, and his girlfriend from Senegal, Zainab (Danai Gurira).
Walter invites the couple to continue sharing the apartment. Zainab is wary, but soon Walter is hanging out in jazz clubs with Tarek and, eventually, taking off his jacket and drumming with his new friend in Central Park.
But 21st-century realities intrude when Tarek is arrested and thrown into a corporate-run detention center. With Zainab also undocumented and on the lam, it’s up to Walter to become Tarek’s sole lifeline against the Office of Homeland Security.
Walter’s makeshift family comes to include Tarek’s widowed mother (the wonderful Hiam Abbass), another illegal alien, who arrives from Detroit. She’s surprised to find a
middle-age white man has hired an attorney to fight Tarek’s deportation, and she forms an intense bond with Walter.
“The Visitor” is McCarthy’s second film as a director, after the wonderful “The Station Agent.” This beautifully shot and acted follow-up, which manages to be neither preachy nor sentimental and never strikes a false note, is a small gem.
THE VISITOR
Quintessential New York story.
Running time: 103 minutes. Rated PG- 13 (brief profanity). At the Sunshine and the Lincoln Plaza.