The Visitor

Walter is an economics professor in his sixties living in Connecticut. Since his wife died he has been interested in nothing; he teaches the same course year after year, keeps starting and abandoning piano lessons, and speaks to no one. Going to New York for a conference, he finds two people in the flat he has not used in years: Tarek, from Syria, and his Senegalese girlfriend Zainab. A con man rented it to them. Walter throws them out, then calls them back. Tarek plays the djembe, and Walter starts taking lessons. The turn does not come there but in the subway: a misunderstanding at a turnstile gets Tarek detained and taken to an immigration facility. From that point the film is about how fast a person without papers can disappear inside a system. Richard Jenkins plays Walter and was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for it; Haaz Sleiman plays Tarek, Danai Gurira plays Zainab and Hiam Abbass plays Tarek's mother. Tom McCarthy wrote and directed. Quiet, small in scale, carrying its anger without raising its voice. For a viewer who wants resolution, the ending is deliberately unsatisfying.