Unwanted Visitor

Preachy politics spoil Thomas McCarthy's otherwise-quiet character study.

by Shaun Brady

ILLEGAL TENDER: Mouna (Hiam Abbass), right, provides Walter (Richard Jenkins) with a little much-needed romance. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Thomas McCarthy's directorial debut, The Station Agent, worked despite its overt sentimentality and Sundance-endorsed whimsy, if only because McCarthy filmed it with such unassuming serenity that he left plenty of space to appreciate his characters in between the contrivances. His follow-up, The Visitor, built as it is on an almost identical foundation, occasionally manages to work in much the same way. But for his sophomore effort McCarthy has burdened his slight character drama with a capital-M Message, which weighs down even the most intimately observed character moments.

Perennial supporting character Richard Jenkins makes the most of a rare opportunity to step out into the lead. From his balding pate to his career as an apathetic economics professor to his evening routine of wine and classical CDs, Walter Vale is a collection of character traits signifying unenlightened, white-upper-middle-class stagnation. Jenkins has been working his way to Walter for his entire career, having played numberless variations on government functionaries and bureaucratic villains. Here he manages to fill that well-worn suit with a lifetime of quiet frustration and regret; he merely changes the dates on the same old syllabus each semester, can't be bothered to work on a long-past-deadline book, and even his ritual of vino and symphonies is less a simple pleasure than a habitual summoning of his late wife.

But once Walter discovers a young immigrant couple squatting in his Manhattan apartment, it's cringingly obvious that this sudden influx of ethnic flavor will reawaken his passion for life via their exotic music and accented ardor. As in The Station Agent, McCarthy presents an oddly matched trio who, despite appearances, complement each other and form an unlikely bond.

Syrian Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) takes to Walter immediately out of a combination of unflagging optimism and nervous gratitude. His Senegalese girlfriend Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira) is slower to overcome her suspicions, knowing Tarek's penchant for getting himself in trouble and recognizing what's at stake. As it turns out, the couple are (unsurprisingly) in the country illegally, and a misunderstanding in the subway leads to Tarek's arrest and threatened deportation.

Once joyful drum circles give way to frustrating encounters with post-9/11 immigration policy, dewy-eyed sentiment cedes to ham-fisted political polemic. Walter makes repeated visits to the facility where Tarek is held, where the U.S. Department of Bitter Irony has covered the walls in "Welcome to America" posters. His every attempt to help ends futilely, raising his ire and the volume of the soundtrack.

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In its self-important rage, the film spoon-feeds its lessons with the condescending simplicity that has torpedoed many a liberal initiative. It myopically suggests that simply getting to know people who are different from you (you being sheltered white folks, natch) is enough to solve the world's problems.

But just as McCarthy's finger-wagging sermon threatens to derail the film's positives, he regains some of his footing with the arrival of Tarek's mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass). The Israeli actress smolders as a strong but scared woman, forced to submerge her own character and become invisible to avert the fate that now awaits her son. She and Walter embark on a romance that becomes the emphasis of the story.

What McCarthy finds in pairing these two is an intelligent, adult relationship, its moments of romance tempered and ripened by history and circumstance. For all the freedom that Walter finds via his friendship with Tarek, it is his affair with Mouna that provides a more complete redemption. And as trite as that sounds, Jenkins plays it as a man who has learned from his experiences and meets the changes wrought halfway, not as someone who's had life's answers provided by a succession of scripted plot points.

That relationship is worthy of a film in itself, and one that could have addressed McCarthy's political points without turning to didacticism. Unfortunately, those quietly powerful performances have to live as strangers in a land that fails to recognize the value of subtlety.

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

The Visitor Directed by Thomas McCarthy An Overture release