Oscar Month Twofer: The Visitor (2008)

Hilarity ensues when a widowed college professor Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) returns from school to his home in New York and finds a couple living in his apartment. Tarek Khalil (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira) have been staying there for a few months. Tarek is a musician and street performer and Zainab makes jewlery. Vale lets them stay and Tarek starts to teach him how to play the African Drum. Tarek is stopped by police and detained on a missunderstanding but it turns out that they are illegal immigrants.

Trivia: The parking lot in which Walter parks is car after arriving in New York--on East 11th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue--was torn down shortly after the film was released.

Richard Jenkins is nominated for Best Actor in this small film. He does a wonderful job of a professor just going through the motions until he meets Tarek and his love of music is awakened. Then his concern over Tarek's situation shows through. It is a touching film and Walter and Mouna (Tarek's mother played by Hiam Abbass) romance is tender. It is a nice quiet movie worth seeing.