The Visitor: a NY immigration story

link to photo

An interesting companion to other immigration movies (such as La Misma Luna - Under the Same Moon).  

-----Meet Tom McCarthy, king of the sleeper hit

The Visitor could prove an even bigger success for the director and actor than 2003's "The Station Agent."

The Guardian

July 1, 2008

...Richard Jenkins plays Walter, a jaded college professor who returns to his long-vacated New York apartment to find that it has been illegally let to a Syrian musician and his Senegalese girlfriend. As in The Station Agent, the unlikely connection between disparate people provides the core of the movie. But as the spectre of deportation arises, the picture assumes real political urgency.

"I never set out to make a film about immigration," says the clean-cut McCarthy in his London hotel. "But I had come up with these characters in a New York setting, and I realised I would have to confront this theme. I visited some detention centres in the US and spoke to some of the people being held there. It was so moving. I've seen grown men from Nigeria break down while talking to me - and these are guys who don't want to break down. They just feel this incredible sense of frustration. I knew then I'd have to find a way to work that into the story. And it seemed to apply to Walter's own situation because he's so dislocated in his own life."

for complete Guardian article click here

link to Salon.com  film review of "The Visitor"