Guest Author - Peggy Maddox

Although Richard Jenkins received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor at the 2008 Academy Awards, the film he received it for got very little hype. It was never on my list of "got to see" movies for the year.

Now that I've seen The Visitor, I can't understand why it didn't run all over Benjamin Button in the rankings. The acting and the story leave that highly-hyped fairy tale in the dust.

Like the movie, actor Richard Jenkins was never on my radar. He has an impressive filmography (close to 100 projects listed at IMDb), but I don't recall seeing him in anything before. He's perfect as the dour college professor going through the motions of teaching as he wallows in depression over the death of his wife. It's never clear how long Professor Walter Vale has been a widower, but one senses that it has been at least a couple of years.

Vale's wife was a pianist and he seems to be trying to maintain a link with her by learning to play the piano, despite a lack of talent. He's well-to-do for a college professor, owning a large, well-furnished house in Connecticut and a apartment in Greenwich Village. Since his wife's death he lives a solitary life, moving between home and classroom, teaching only one class and pretending to work on a book. In fact he little but drink wine and listen to music.

When his superior forces him to attend an academic conference in New York City, Vale finds an immigrant couple living in his apartment. Someone named Ivan rented it to them illegally. Although they have nowhere else to go, they leave at once. Vale permits them to go, but goes after them to return a framed photo. He invites them back to the apartment until they can find other accomodations.

Belated decisions are typical of Vale's behavior. He's so used to letting life wash over him, his better instincts and desires operate in slow motion. Little by little, in the course of ten days, he becomes involved in the lives of Syrian Tarek Khalil (Haaz Sleiman) and Nigerian Zainab (Danai Gurira).

Tarek is an enthusiastic drummer. When he senses Vale's interest in the drums, he offers to teach him. Typically Vale's first response is to refuse the offer, but then he succumbs to his desire. He accompanies Tarek to a park and joins a jam session of other drummers. On their way back from the park, they take the subway. When his drum jams the turnstyle, Tarek must back up and then jump the barrier. He's arrested by subway police who discover that he's in the country illegally.

From that point the nightmare begins for Tarek and Zainab. Tarek's mother comes from Michigan. Vale and she develop a friendship. He does all he can to free Tarek.

To tell more would be to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it.

It's a fine movie--well-acted, well-written, and timely. Perhaps it touches contemporary American life too closely to be attractive to the entertainment industry.

Illegal immigration is a major social problem in this country. It's easy to condemn such lawbreakers en masse. It's not so easy to remain unsympathetic when the illegals take on an identity and personality. Seeing them treated inhumanely by a supposedly humane government is disquieting. We need movies that pose hard questions. The Visitor is one.