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‘The Visitor' is pleasant on screen, in person

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Once in a while, my super cool job as the the Hill Country News film critic gets even cooler when I get to meet someone famous. During SXSW I had the opportunity to interview many interesting and dynamic people - actors, directors, screenwriters, real-life subjects and more - but one really stands out for me and that is my conversation with Richard Jenkins, star of “The Visitor,” a film about one man's journey back into actually living his life. Directed and written by Thomas McCarthy, “The Visitor” offers a poignant look at one man who is simply going through the motions of living while not actually living, until by chance he meets an interesting pair of strangers.

Seeing Jenkins, an exceedingly well-traveled character actor, topped the film for me by bounds, and I loved - simply loved - this film. I know him best for his role in the HBO series “Six Feet Under,” but he has worked with the Farrelly brothers, and this year he'll be in his third film for the Coen brothers. He has been around for decades in comedies, dramas and on Broadway. He is the charming epitome of character acting, 100 percent in tune with each of his characters and each scene in each film. “The Visitor” marks the 60-year-old's first leading role, and it is sheer perfection. The script is excellent, the supporting cast wonderful, but the pleasure of watching Jenkins inhabit his role touched me more than any character I have seen in years.

Jenkins plays Walter Vale, a professor of economics in Connecticut who is forced to present a paper at a conference in New York. Because he is little more than a credible name on a the cover sheet for his writing partner, he doesn't really want to attend. The true author of the paper - a person we never meet - is hospitalized. Walter's life is quite obviously joyless, if for no other reason than the loss of his wife, a concert pianist, who passed away some years earlier.

Not given any choice, Walter must attend the conference. He arrives at the apartment he keeps in the city, where he hasn't been since his wife's passing, and finds it inhabited by Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), an immigrant from Syria, and his girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira), from Senegal. After a scuffle, the couple leaves, because they have illegally sublet the apartment; Walter is moved by their plight and invites them to stay with him for the time being.

Tarek - another delightfully designed character - plays the drum both professionally and as a hobby. At first cautious of each other, the odd pair become friends and Tarek teaches Walter, who's been struggling futilely with piano lessons, to play the African drum.

McCarthy - who incidentally, as Jenkins told me, wrote “The Visitor” with Jenkins in mind for the lead - could have easily made this a film about race difference and the pursuit of tolerance. However, the interplay of personalities on display doesn't feel like a race thing, but like a human thing. Credit goes both to McCarthy's perfect script and to the incredible actors, who effortlessly portray their characters as compassionate, rounded human beings invested in their respective cultures without being defined by them.

What impressed me most about the film is its message about human nature, and how regardless of their differences, people, even very diverse people, can connect in the most awkward of circumstances. Tarek and Walter - years apart in age and culture - become friends, with music as a common bond. And when Tarek is arrested for a ridiculously minor infraction, it is discovered that he is in the United States illegally. Walter, whose job and financial situation are secure, jumps into the system, hires a lawyer and does whatever he possibly can to save Tarek from deportation and for a moment the film risks becoming an attack on U.S. immigration policy, but because McCarthy's is a story about people, he manages to send a message without falling prey to political pontification. And when Tarek's mother, Mouna (also in the country illegally) arrives to save her son, another incredibly moving relationship occurs - between Walter and Mouna (played beautifully by the exceptional Israeli actress Hiam Abbass).

I cannot say enough good things about the PG-13-rated “The Visitor.” I cannot imagine any other film coming close to number one on my top ten list for 2008. Meeting Jenkins, who is equally appealing in person as he is playing the endearing, compassionate Walter, will be difficult to surpass. He is every bit as gracious, humble and subtly sexy in person as he is on screen and yet, he is far from the typical hunky leading man. When I mentioned that my friend's daughter was dying to meet him, he called her cell phone and left her a message.

I am placing an A+ in my gradebook and I rarely give out my top score. I hope it gets the attention it so very much deserves now and at Oscar time.

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