The Visitor is a 2008 American drama film written and directed by Thomas McCarthy. The screenplay focuses on a lonely man in late middle age whose life changes when he is forced to face issues relating to identity, immigration, and cross-cultural communication in post-9/11 New York City.
Plot: A deeply moving drama built around longtime character actor Richard Jenkins, The Visitor is a simmering drama about a college professor and recent widower, Walter Vale (Jenkins), who discovers a pair of illegal aliens who were the victims of a real estate scam living in his New York apartment. After the mix-up is resolved, Vale invites the couple a young, Syrian musician named Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and his Senegalese girlfriend (Danai Gurira) to stay with him. An unlikely friendship develops between the retiring, quiet Vale and the vibrant Tarek, and the former begins to loosen up and respond to Tarek’s drumming lessons as if something in him waiting to be liberated has finally been unleashed. All goes well until Tarek is hauled in by immigration authorities and threatened with deportation. His mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), turns up and stays with Vale, sparking a renewed if subdued interest in courtship. However, the wheels of injustice in immigration crush all manner of hopes in post-9/11 America. Vale soon realizes that he has unexpected anger over Tarek’s plight, and the positive changes to his personal life that emerged from a deep involvement with his friend and Mouna might be the only legacy he takes from this experience. Writer director Thomas McCarthy has created a wonderfully measured story about change and renewal and put it all on the shoulders of Jenkins, a largely unheralded but masterful performer whose time for renown has surely come.
Box Office
The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival and was shown at numerous 2008 festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival, the European Film Market, the Portland International Film Festival, the Miami International Film Festival, South by Southwest, the Dallas International Film Festival, the Phoenix Film Festival, and the Philadelphia International Film Festival before going into limited release in the US on April 11. It earned $86,488 on four screens on its opening weekend and eventually grossed $9,427,089 in the US and $5,737,649 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $15,164,738.
Cast
* Richard Jenkins – Walter Vale
* Haaz Sleiman – Tarek
* Danai Jekesai Gurira – Zainab
* Hiam Abbass – Mouna
* Richard Kind – Jacob
* Michael Cumpsty – Charles
* Marian Seldes – Barbara
Incoming search terms:
- can you watch the visitor movie 2008 on line?
- The Visitor 2008 online movie
- watch the visitor online walter vale
