The Visitor

The Visitor is a small indie film that adeptly examines the theme suggested by its spare title from a couple of different levels. There is the college professor who has given up on living, he's merely visiting his life. And then there's the refugees in the U.S.A., hoping for a chance at a better life, but relegated to a surreal limbo-like existence, outside of the official bureaucracy.

Richard Jenkins stars as the barely alive college professor - inspired casting given his experience as the spiritual dad in the classic tv series, Six Feet Under. What kind of actor, by the way, takes a role in a series where his character is killed off in the first scene? Okay, granted, his ghostly presence made regular on-screen returns, but still.

Unknown to the professor, a refugee couple have rented out his Manhattan apartment (we never find out why exactly he maintains an apartment in NYC which he rarely visits - something to do with his late wife, we presume). The professor shows up for a conference. Surprise! Surprise! But he lets the couple stay. Tarek is from Syria - a musician specializing in African drum - a form of music that captivates the professor and gradually re-invigorates the professor's life - that and a visit from the Tarek's mother.

To its credit, the movie does not engage in any heavy-handed proselytism of the evils of the refugee process. It simply presents the refugees as people - and lets the circumstance and treatment speak for itself. "Everything changed after 9-11," one character remarks. Perhaps, but there has to be a better way to address the plight of these human beings.