The Visitor

The Visitor

Directed by Tom McCarthy

(PG-13)

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A widowed economics professor befriends an immigrant couple.

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Good intentions aren’t enough to make a movie, said Scott Foundas in The Village Voice. Writer-director Tom McCarthy “unquestionably means well” with The Visitor, a quietly charming story of a chance encounter between an uptight, aging professor and a young immigrant couple that blossoms into a friendship. His exploration of this “unlikely threesome” has some similarities to his 2003 debut, The Station Agent, but McCarthy makes the mistake of giving this film a political agenda. The Visitor becomes a “liberal-guilt-trip movie about First World ignorance of Third World culture.” There’s an annoying “It’s a Small World fairy-tale” quality to the film, said Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly. Yet Richard Jenkins plays the professor with such reticence that he “turns a tall tale into a heartfelt ballad.” You could say McCarthy coasts by on the charm of his actors. But he’s wise to pace the film around Jenkins, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. The “quiet precision” of his performance provides an essential underpinning for the “impressive grace and understatement” of McCarthy’s direction.