This is the second directorial outing for actor Tom Mc Carthy and his second time playing fairy godmother to a respected character actor. Just as The Station Agent provided an excellent showcase for Peter Dinklage, The Visitor bumps Richard Jenkins from the ‘Oh, him’ bush leagues and into the Leading Man division. You can tell Mr. McCarthy is an actor himself. His delicate screenplay is compromised of small details and smaller movements. You know, the stuff that requires acting. For much of the opening act Richard Jenkins, a regular for the Coens and the Farrellys, provides a study in zombiefication. A widowed lecturer in global economics, his days are constructed around minimising interactions with others.
On an academic trip to New York, a chance encounter with two illegal immigrants changes everything. Slowly, surely, he blossoms into fully fledged humanity.
It’s a superficially simple construct though Mr. McCarthy cleverly, stealthily introduces a post-9/11, post-axis of evil dimension. Surely, his argument seems to go, America belongs to those who lend it a pulse?
While this is very much the Richard Jenkins show, the veteran actor’s mesmerising performance simply could not work without the assistance of Haaz Sleiman as an irrepressible street drummer and Hiam Abbass as a concerned Syrian mother.
Their combined tenderness ensures that this well meaning drama is always more than that.