Welcome 'Visitor' at MoMA

By Kevin Lally

The cast of The Visitor, with director Thomas McCarthy. Image thanks to WireImage.

FJI Executive Editor Kevin Lally is back on "Screener," reporting on a special night at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

The stars came out to support writer-director Tom McCarthy at the New York premiere of his new film The Visitor at the Museum of Modern Art last night. And they had every reason to. Judging from the buzz from the packed audience at the Titus Theater, McCarthy has many fans within the New York filmmaking community. An actor who has appeared in HBO's "The Wire" and such films as Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck, McCarthy made an acclaimed feature directing debut in 2003 with The Station Agent, and his second film should receive equally glowing reviews.

Richard Jenkins, a terrific actor perhaps best known as the dead father who refuses to leave quietly in "Six Feet Under," stars in The Visitor as Walter Vale, a Connecticut economics professor still reeling from the death of his classical-pianist wife. Returning to his old apartment in New York City for an academic conference at NYU, he is startled to find a young immigrant couple, a Syrian man and a Senegalese woman, living quite comfortably there--the unwitting victims of a real estate scam. Gradually, Walter comes to befriend the couple, and all their lives change in unexpected and poignant ways.

Opening on April 11 in New York and Los Angeles via Overture Films, The Visitor is a little gem of a movie. McCarthy's script never makes a misstep--the developing relationships among the four major characters are entirely credible, and the movie provides an intimate, affecting, eye-opening new angle on the hot-button issue of illegal immigration. As a filmmaker, McCarthy cannily uses a wide variety of New York locations in what is essentially a love letter to the city's diversity (except for the chilling institutional building in Queens that becomes a key location). And, as an actor himself, McCarthy elicits marvelous performances from all his leads: Jenkins very subtly blossoms as a man who's been on autopilot since his wife's death; Haaz Sleiman is a charismatic charmer as Tarek, the Syrian drummer who helps Walter come alive; Danai Gurira is lovely as his reticent girlfriend; and Nazareth-born actress Hiam Abbass (The Syrian Bride) is exceedingly graceful and touching as Tarek's anguished mother, who turns up in New York looking for her son.

McCarthy and his four stars were all at MoMA last night, basking in the warm reception to their film. So were the three stars of McCarthy's The Station Agent: Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson and Bobby Cannavale. And lending their support was a gallery of boldface names: the great Sidney Lumet, Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling and David Strathairn, Steve Buscemi, Ellen Barkin, Bebe Neuwirth, Stanley Tucci, Blythe Danner, Tim Blake Nelson, John Slattery of "Mad Men," Broadway grande dame Marian Seldes (who has a small role in the film), playwright John Patrick Shanley and author Gay Talese, among others.

The after-party in the Agnes Gund Garden Lobby (complete with drummers from the film) was a most civilized and high-spirited affair, with plenty of space for the celebratory crowd to mingle. Here's hoping the buzz continues when The Visitor debuts next week--McCarthy's film deserves strong word of mouth.