The Visitor.

"Tom McCarthy's surprise indie hit The Station Agent was something of a minor miracle," writes Chris Wisniewski in indieWIRE. "A touching, big-hearted character study propelled by three vibrant performances, The Station Agent distinguished itself with its sensitivity and grace, qualities sorely lacking in an independent film culture that too often prizes the clever, the glib, the cute, and the smug. With his sophomore effort as a writer-director, The Visitor, McCarthy once again proves himself to be refreshingly out-of-step with the indie mainstream, taking an improbable set-up and patiently observing as his damaged but likeable characters work their way through it. Despite its contrivances, the film is a work of quiet, restrained empathy."

Updated through 4/12.

"McCarthy's movie is less about the trials of illegals in this country as it effects illegals but as it does people like Walter [Richard Jenkins] who are inspired to give a damn about them," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant.

S James Snyder talks with McCarthy for the New York Sun.

Profiles of Jenkins: Paul Brownfield (Los Angeles Times) and Jeremy W Peters (New York Times).

Earlier: Reviews from Sundance and Toronto.

Update, 4/9: "McCarthy unquestionably means well, but he's made one of those incredibly naïve movies that gives liberals a bad name, and which does more to regress the sociopolitical discourse than advance it," writes Scott Foundas in the Voice. "'I was struck by how little I knew about the region,' McCarthy says in the movie's press notes, remarking on his trip to the Middle East as part of a US cultural-outreach program. 'With all the news and the headlines and the drama, we can forget that there are human beings on both sides of this.' Is McCarthy really this dense, or does he think he's the enlightened one and we are in need of his counsel? I hope the former, but, on the basis of The Visitor, I fear the latter."

Updates, 4/10: Chuck Wilson talks with Jenkins or the LA Weekly.

Aaron Hillis talks with McCarthy for the IFC.

Updates, 4/11: "The curious thing about The Visitor is that even as it goes more or less where you think it will, it still manages to surprise you along the way," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. " It is possible to imagine a version of this story - the tale of a square, middle-aged white man liberated from his uptightness by an infusion of Third World soulfulness, attached to an exposé of the cruelty of post-9/11 immigration policies - that would be obvious and sentimental, an exercise in cultural condescension and liberal masochism. Indeed, it's nearly impossible to imagine it any other way. And yet, astonishingly enough, Mr McCarthy has."

"Eloquent and unassuming, it's a picture that hits home precisely because it doesn't overreach its grasp," writes Salon's Stephanie Zacharek.

"It's tempting to describe McCarthy's movie as a story about the effect of draconian post-Sept 11 immigration laws on individuals, but this would make it sound like the kind of issue-driven movie that plays like a scolding and feels like a chore," writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. "The Visitor is far from that. It's a film about relationships, their randomness and unpredictability, and what happens when bureaucracy attempts to make life conform to its rigid, parochial and often ignorant standards."

"As a low-key exercise in illustrating the scope of human compassion, The Visitor is a terrifically well-meaning film whose story is too tidy in its symmetries, though often redeemed by its performances," writes Steve Dollar in the New York Sun.

"McCarthy imbues a hoary old staple of low-budget American film - an unlikely conglomeration of misfits who come together to form an unlikely family - with sensitivity and grace," writes Nathan Rabin at the AV Club. "Like few of his filmmaking peers, he understands and respects the power of quiet, and how a whisper can be as explosive as a shout."

Howard Feinstein profiles McCarthy for Filmmaker: "Although comparing McCarthy's paid thesping to personal projects he writes and directs may seem glib, one can make a case for his attraction to films whose ideological underpinnings echo his own predispositions.... The Visitor incorporates technical and dramatic elements McCarthy gleaned from his work on innumerable features and television series into an enlightened take on contemporary America in crisis. The brilliantly unobtrusive depiction is so au courant that one might expect it to have been realized as a quickie television doc instead of as a feature narrative."

Update, 4/12: For NPR, Elizabeth Blair talks with Haaz Sleiman, who plays Tarek Khalil.

Posted by dwhudson at April 8, 2008 9:53 AM