Ever feel like a stranger in your own skin, unable to tap into “the real you”? You might even feel like a visitor to the confines of your own being. Figuring out a way to reach that elusive inner self can be a wrenching personal task, but it’s one many must undertake to find real happiness in life. It’s just such a journey that’s the focus of the recently released drama, “The Visitor.”
Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) is a lonely widower and bored economics professor in a Connecticut college town. When asked to present a paper at a conference in New York, he initially drums up excuses to get out of it, preferring to wallow in his rut, but, in the end, he reluctantly agrees. He thus sets off for the city in which he once spent much of his time, his only real connection these days being an apartment he keeps there. But his journey is ultimately more than just a business trip; it’s also an excursion into the depths of his soul.
Upon his arrival in New York, Walter finds his apartment occupied by an immigrant couple, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian drummer, and his girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira), a Senegalese jewelry designer, the unwitting victims of a fraudulent rental scam. They initially agree to leave, but when Walter sees their plight, he extends them an invitation to stay, an uncharacteristic gesture of empathy for the long-withdrawn protagonist. A new web of friendships is thus born that will change Walter in ways that he can hardly begin to imagine, allowing his true self to emerge.
“The Visitor” is an engaging film, its title both literal and metaphorical. It’s also a movie that inspires in many ways. Such inspiration is perhaps most obvious in the surfacing of Walter’s new persona. But it’s also apparent in its heartfelt humanitarian and political messages, sincere and zealous rallying cries for reform to a society that needs change if it’s to live up to the ideals it claims to hold so dearly, particularly for those new to our shores who are in search of a better, fairer way of life.
Walter’s story will tug at your heart, but it will also build a fiery passion within, just as it does for him. And, in the process, you just might find out things about yourself that you never knew before, again, just like Walter. With a film like this to enlighten us, none of us need be strangers in our own skin ever again.
(“The Visitor” – 2007 (production), 2008 (release); Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira, Hiam Abbass; Thomas McCarthy, director; Thomas McCarthy, screenplay)
