Visitor 106 mins, USA 2008

Directed by Thomas McCarthy, starring Danai Gurira, Haaz Sleiman, Hiam Abbas, Richard Jenkins

9/11 is the elephant in the room of Man on Wire, and some of its human consequences are explored in The Visitor, Tom McCarthy’s long awaited follow up to his much loved first film The Station Agent.

Walter Vale is a middle-aged, jaded and vaguely depressed professor of developmental economics, who has lost interest in work and life generally. While in New York for a conference, he visits his apartment there for the first time in a year, only to find it occupied by illegal immigrants, a Syrian musician, Tarek, and his Senegalese girlfriend. He invites them to stay and in the ensuing interval he becomes caught up with their lives and their experiences at the hands of the authorities – the predicament of being an illegal Muslim immigrant in post 9/11 America. Walter’s experience of another culture, and of responsibility for lives other than his own, are ultimately healing, reviving his humanity and reasons for living. A poignant, sometimes funny film about finding joy in unexpected places.

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