- The United States is, simply put, a country founded upon immigration. Given that Native Americans comprise at most a few percent of the current U.S. population, odds are that you or your ancestors moved here sometime within the past 400 years, and probably much more recently than that. That's part of why it's so painful to listen to the xenophobic rhetoric that always permeates discussion of American immigration in the public sphere. Not exactly the "world-wide welcome" promised by Statue of Liberty, to say the least.
- Thomas McCarthy's The Visitor is a film intended to point out this discrepancy, and I'm pleased to say that it does so with great success. The immigrants in this case are a charming and decidedly international young couple consisting of a Syrian musician named Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and an artisan from Senegal named Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira). Tarek and Zainab are in the U.S. illegally, but we are quickly reminded that this term can mean a lot of different things. In the case of Tarek, it was his mother Mouna's (Hiam Abbass) refusal to accept deportation. Zainab is here because they ran out of room in a detention center. Now the two of them are living in New York City, trying their best to make a living and, above all, to stay out of trouble.
- Unfortunately, trouble has a way of finding illegal immigrants. The first incident involves the apartment that Tarek and Zainab think they have rented, which actually belongs to a recently widowed man named Walter (Richard Jenkins). Walter's life is plagued by academic problems, both in the sense that they have to do with his job as a professor and that they are neither important nor relevant to the real world. His book needs writing, his class needs teaching, and he has to go to a conference, to choose a few examples. Imagine his surprise when he opens the door to his infrequently visited New York apartment (we quickly gather that Walter doesn't have money problems) only to find Zainab taking a bath. Although it initially seems as though Walter's painfully introverted, wine-sipping lifestyle will proceed unperturbed, maybe meeting two (and eventually three) interesting immigrants is exactly what he needed. I admit that it seems like a hokey setup, but all four of the main actors are talented enough, and the script smart enough, that even seeing Walter learn the African djembe drum seems believable.
- The cleverest aspect of The Visitor is the slow revelation that Walter's behavior is being presented as the positive example of how to treat unexpected visitors. He is initially justifiably suspicious, but takes the time to get to know them and gradually welcomes them into his life, which they in turn enrich. Unfortunately, the negative example is provided by law enforcement and the U.S. government, which quickly leap into action when it appears (incorrectly, as it turns out) that Tarek has committed a grave act of turnstile jumping. Pretty soon, Tarek is in a detention center and even his mother can't visit him without fear of arrest. It's an ugly situation, but one that surely sits in the back of most immigrants' minds, whether they are legal or not. By the end, the film's early idealism has given way to the reality of American immigration policies and their effects on real people. Sure, The Visitor is sometimes a little on-the-nose (especially the airport scene, which appears to have been arranged by a diversity committee), but you can't argue with its message. But I'm sure people still do.
- At one point, Tarek mentions the music of Fela Kuti.
