Events Calendar

The Petoskey Film Theater will be showing the film "The Visitor" (rated PG-13) on Wednesday, October 22 and Friday, October 24, 7:30 pm, at the Petoskey Public Library, Carnegie Building. Donations are appreciated. This film is a heartfelt, humanistic drama that deftly explores identity, immigration, and other major post-9/11 issues, directed by Tom McCarthy ("The Station Agent").

A deeply moving drama built around longtime character actor Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor" is a simmering drama about a college professor and recent widower, Walter Vale (Jenkins), who discovers a pair of homeless, illegal aliens living in his New York apartment. After the mix-up is resolved, Vale invites the couple -- a young, Syrian musician named Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and his Senagalese girlfriend (Danai Gurira) -- to stay with him. An unlikely friendship develops between the retiring, quiet Vale and the vital Tarek, and the former begins to lossen up and respond to Tarek's drumming lessons as if something in him waiting to be liberated has finally arrived. All goes well until Tarek is hauled in by immigration authorities and threatened with deportation. His mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), turns up and stays with Vale, sparking a renewed if subdued interest in courtship.

But the wheels of injustice in immigration crush all manner of hopes in post-9/11 America. Vale soon realizes his unexpected capacity for anger over Tarek's plight, and the positive changes to his personal life that emerged from a deep involvement with his friend and Mouna, might be the only legacy he takes from this experience. Writer-director Thomas McCarthy has created a wonderfully measured story about change and renewal, and put it all on the shoulders of Jenkins, a largely underalded but masterful performer whose time for renown has surely come.