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Rating:
THE UNEXPECTED GUEST (THE VISITOR)
A satisfying cinema experience that even came back to mind during my sleep, it impressed me so favorably. There were about ten/fifteen people in the theater. Nothing strange since it is an objectively slow, thoughtful film and in some ways heavy and difficult, especially if compared to the libidinous themes dealt with by the nearby and almost sold out “Torno a vivere da solo.” The director (Tom McCarty), unknown to me, shows great talent in knowing how to tell an intense, contemporary and dramatic story with delightful humorous interludes that nevertheless do not spoil the prevailing bittersweet flavor that will accompany us when, once the credits have rolled, we get up from our seats.
Walter and Tarek have almost nothing in common. The former is a dry and glacial university professor utterly exhausted by his job, who, close to retirement, hates and despises imposing obsolete and empty courses on students. He continues out of routine. Tarek is a young volcano, an extroverted, likable, and brilliant person from Syria in love with a beautiful and timid African girl. Walter (Jenkins) is a wealthy American citizen; Tarek (Hazz Sleiman) is an illegal immigrant not rolling in money but, unlike Professor Vale, is happy. They meet due to circumstances that don't concern us, and Tarek becomes the unexpected guest, disrupting the elderly academic's life. He is like water for a plant that seemed dead but just needed to be watered. Walter is a sponge, famished, feeding on a friendship hard to even imagine that, to the rhythm of the "drum," grows and strengthens day by day and even manages to change the professor's way of seeing the world and relating to people. In this regard, the scene where the protagonists look at the Statue of Liberty is emblematic and intense.
For such a friendship, Walter is willing to do anything. And when things get complicated, deteriorate, the cold and glacial professor at the beginning who would have turned away is gone. In his place emerges a new person who tries in every way to help his friend in difficulty and has the courage to loudly rebel against an unjust system: something inconceivable for him just a few days earlier. The ending doesn’t matter (which I won’t reveal); what the director strongly wants to say is that the foreigner is not just a factor to exploit, oppose, endure, but can, in some cases, also enrich us and make us better. This is the case with Walter and Tarek.
High-level cinema, with few deeply explored characters (stunning performances by Jenkins and Hiam Abbass) and settings that I strongly recommend you go see, and which I hope I haven’t spoiled with this intentionally sparse review. It's worth a couple of beers, trust me.
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