A quiet and engaging little character study from writer-director Thomas McCarthy. Veteran actor Richard Jenkins gets a lead role (but remains appropriately humble) as Walter Vale, a closed-off professor and widower who makes a rare visit from his suburban home to his New York City apartment and discovers an illegal-immigrant couple (Haaz Sleiman and Danai Gurira) living there. What follows is a celebration of multiculturalism as an American virtue, as well as a revealing, inside-out look at the immigration process, in which people’s lives appear to be put in the hands of the DMV. The Visitor found great empathy – and a large, word-of-mouth audience – upon its theatrical release.
