The Visitor

Walter Vale is an economics professor at a Connecticut college whose life has grown hollow since his wife's death. Sent to New York for a conference he would rather skip, he arrives at the Manhattan apartment he rarely uses and finds it occupied by a young couple, Tarek, a Syrian musician, and his Senegalese girlfriend Zainab. They had been rented the place by someone posing as its owner, and with nowhere else to go, they accept Walter's offer to stay until they find another home. What begins as an awkward arrangement turns into friendship, but Tarek's detention by immigration authorities leaves him facing deportation, and Walter becomes the person the couple must rely on.

Tom McCarthy directed and wrote the film, his second feature after The Station Agent and the one preceding Win Win in his filmography. Richard Jenkins leads the cast as Walter, with Haaz Sleiman as Tarek, Danai Gurira as Zainab, Hiam Abbass as Tarek's mother Mouna, Marian Seldes as Barbara and Maggie Moore as Karen. Produced by Michael London, Mary Jane Skalski and John Woldenberg, the film was made for about four million dollars and took roughly eighteen million worldwide, a strong return on a modest production.

Audiences have received it warmly: on IMDb it holds a 7.6 rating from around 46,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.1 from a much smaller pool of voters.