the visitor (2008)

tom mccarthy's follow up to ''the station agent'' proved to be a sleeper hit last summer, with a reinvigoration of interest after richard jenkins' oscar nomination. more importantly the film won the best director award at the independent spirit awards, a more telling sign of quality in my opinion.

"the visitor" tells the story of walter vale, a widowed college assistant who has all but given up on his work and life. when visiting new york for a work assignment he finds that a pair of illegal immigrants are living in his apartment. rather than removing the couple, he decides to let them stay, and over the course of the next 30 minutes or so we see their relationship bloom. vale learns how to be passionate again, through the course of learning to play the traditional drum instrument that tarek plays for a living. through a chance encounter the film takes a decidedly grim turn, and the focus is turned on topic of the american governments post 9/11 foreign policy.

richard jenkins is fantastic as walter vale, just fantastic. im not hugely aware of his work, i remember him from ''six feet under'', and have seen him in the recent "burn after reading'', but he is simply a revelation in this post. his character is reminiscent of that of finbar in mccarthy's previous "the station agent", in the respect that we dont feel like we want to like the character, or that the character doesnt actually want us to like them either. throughout the picture the character is unveiled though, and we learn to feel empathy towards him, and are willing him onto develop.

the themes of the film are pretty hard hitting, in the sense that injustice and political wrong-doing is on the screen for all to see. the film doesnt cop out and offer unrealistic answers, it simply shows us the cause and the realism that is the fact that very little can be done by the average person with regards to the situation we are witness to. visually the film is outstanding. the stunted pace of the film i complimented by languid, sparse arrangements that tie into the tone perfectly. mccarthy's style works as a counterpoint of sorts to wes anderson, with a similiar low key style but understated theatrics.

i was really affected by "the visitor", much moreso than i expected to be. its a wonderful piece of cinema that shows that the talented man at the helm is developing greatly as a cinematic force.

the station agent (2003)

tom mccarthy, a sometime actor probably best known for his role in season 5 of the wire burst onto the independent film scene in 2003 with this gem of a film. "the station agent" concerns a man named 'fin', who inherits an old train depot station after the death of his boss, and his subsequent relationship with the locals of the small town that the property resides in. the core character trio of fin, joe the local hotdog vendor and olivia, a local artist rules the core of the film, and with it comes some pretty heavy topics. each of the characters has a severe characteristic flaw, be it olivia's trauma as a result of her sons death, joe's inability to remove his fathers influence, or the chip on his shoulder that fin carries due to his dwarfism. the resulting 85 minutes brings us a combination of dark rooted hope and a study in the irony of specific relationships. the films "feelgood" nature, a term i despise yet attach to this project is genuinely lovely, despite the nature of which it flows.