The Visitor

In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life. In actor and filmmaker Tom McCarthy’s follow-up to his award winning directorial debut The Station Agent, Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) stars as a disillusioned Connecticut economics professor whose life is transformed by a chance encounter in New York City.

Sixty-two-year-old Walter Vale (Jenkins) is sleepwalking through his life. Having lost his passion for teaching and writing, he fills the void by unsuccessfully trying to learn to play classical piano. When his college sends him to Manhattan to attend a conference, Walter is surprised to find a young couple has taken up residence in his apartment. Victims of a real estate scam, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian man, and Zainab (Danai Gurira), his Senegalese girlfriend, have nowhere else to go. In the first of a series of tests of the heart, Walter reluctantly allows the couple to stay with him.

Touched by his kindness, Tarek, a talented musician, insists on teaching the aging academic to play the African drum. The instrument’s exuberant rhythms revitalize Walter’s faltering spirit and open his eyes to a vibrant world of local jazz clubs and Central Park drum circles. As the friendship between the two men deepens, the differences in culture, age and temperament fall away.

After being stopped by police in the subway, Tarek is arrested as an undocumented citizen and held for deportation. As his situation turns desperate, Walter finds himself compelled to help his new friend with a passion he thought he had long ago lost. When Tarek’s beautiful mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) arrives unexpectedly in search of her son, the professor’s personal commitment develops into an unlikely romance.

And it’s through these new found connections with these virtual strangers that Walter is awakened to a new world and a new life.

"Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor, from his own screenplay, is nothing short of a triumph for 60-year-old character actor Richard Jenkins, in his first leading role in a feature film." (Andrew Sarris, New York Observer)

"Actor-turned-filmmaker Tom McCarthy demonstrates that the critical acclaim for The Station Agent in 2003 was no fluke." (Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter)

"A film that is a combination immigrant/resurrection tale, Visitor tilts toward the soulful rather than the political and could be this year's humanistic indie hit." (John Anderson, Variety)

"Finally an effective, timely and enjoyable political melodrama that contests stereotypes and centers on culture collision between Americans and Muslims, with tour de force, Oscar-caliber turn from Richard Jenkins as the emotionally sheltered professor." (Emanuel Levy, emanuellevy.com)