Social Issue Themes: immigration, human rights
Actors: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Jekesai Gurira, Hiam Abbass
Writer: Thomas McCarthy
Director: Thomas McCarthy
Producers: Michael London, Mary Jane Skalski
Production Company: Groundswell Productions, Participant Productions
Distributor: Overture Films

THE VISITOR is a remarkably compassionate and intelligent character drama. The film effectively reveals injustices in the U.S. immigration system through the unlikely friendships that develop between its central characters. We are drawn into their lives through twists of fate that bring them together, then prematurely separate them.

Richard Jenkins, known for a long career as a character actor, delivers a powerful performance in the lead role as an inert, widowed professor from Connecticut named Walter Vale. Jenkins’ nuanced performance is wholly genuine and moving. His honest portrayal of a man reconnecting to life and society, bolstered by a strong supporting cast, enables a very minimal script to become richly layered, engaging, and poignant from a personal and sociopolitical context.

Walter, a resigned man who has long since lost his zest for life, receives a sudden and unexpected wake-up call when he returns to New York to find an immigrant couple - a Syrian man named Tarek and a Senegalese woman named Zainab - living in his apartment. The couple has been duped into thinking they are renting the apartment legitimately, leading to a tragicomic first encounter. Rather than kick the couple out on the street, Walter uncharacteristically softens and agrees to let them live with him until they can find a new home.

An unlikely friendship ensues as Tarek, a gregarious and vital young man seeking a new life in the land of opportunity, awakens Walter’s zeal for life by teaching him to play the African drum. Walter’s character transformation is gradual and realistic, mirroring the pace and tone of the film. He evolves as he spends more time with Tarek and Zainab, encountering their bohemian lives, which are a somewhat idealized depiction of the optimism and hope of the immigrant experience.

An emotional peak is reached when Walter and Tarek join a drum circle in Central Park. As Walter plays the drum, he stands out from the other drummers, yet is able to blissfully lose himself in the rhythm and unity of the culturally diverse circle. Because of Jenkins’ masterful performance we are immersed in Walter’s transformation, rather than the scene’s simplistic message and the set-up for the tragic scene that follows.

Walter’s awakening is short-lived. On the way home from Central Park, Tarek is wrongfully arrested for jumping a subway turnstile and is immediately thrown into an illegal alien detention center. Walter, who was previously unable to cope with his life, is grounded by his newfound responsibility as Tarek’s sole connection with the outside world. Walter’s passion for Tarek’s cause is inspiring, upholding the deeply held (but sometimes forgotten) American principles of equality and due process. However, Walter only gets involved when the discrimination and secrecy of the current U.S. immigration process hits too close to home.

THE VISITOR continues by following Walter, Tarek, and Tarek’s mother through the demoralizing, agonizing, and seemingly futile task of appealing to reason and humanity in what is portrayed as a cold bureaucratic agency governed by policy and precedent. The battle for Tarek’s freedom culminates in an exceptionally powerful scene in the detention center waiting room where Walter unexpectedly explodes in a verbal onslaught, imploring the disengaged officer behind the security window to show a little compassion.

Ultimately, THE VISITOR provides few solutions for humanizing the U.S. policy towards detaining illegal immigrants, but succeeds in the difficult task of engaging a modern audience in a film with a political and social issue as a core theme. Jenkins’ masterful portrayal of Walter, coupled with director Tom McCarthy’s unhurried pacing and keen eye for human nuance and expression, combine to engage the audience in the issue of immigration at a personal level. Left without a clear solution, THE VISITOR still asks all the right questions.

Wall-E
by Maisha Fishburne and Frankie K. Foster

Social Issue Themes: environment, consumerism, consolidation of technology, technology ethics
Actors: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver, and John Ratzenberger
Writers: Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Jim Reardon
Director: Andrew Stanton
Producers: John Lasseter, Lindsey Collins, Jim Morris, and Thomas Porter
Production Company: Pixar Animation Studios
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures

It’s the 22nd century and earth has become an uninhabitable wasteland. In an attempt to preserve humanity, corporate giant Buy N Large (BnL) has created the massive fleet-line cruiser Axiom, complete with robot assistance, for humans to survive in outer space. To salvage Earth, an army of Wall-E robots (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class) clean up the planet by compacting and stacking trash for disposal. Seven hundred years pass aboard the Axiom and humankind transforms into a race of obese individuals oblivious of earth’s current state. Only one Wall-E remains to clean up earth by himself--along with a very durable cockroach. In the midst of creating huge skyscrapers of debris, we see Wall-E hoard the treasures he finds scattered among the urban wasteland, distant memories of the living past. Wall-E’s world is shaken upside down when EVE, a sleek and sophisticated female robot delivered by Axiom, drops on earth in search of organic life. She finds Wall-E and one of his many treasures, a seedling plant in a boot. Her mission is to report back to Axiom that Earth is indeed inhabitable now. Wall-E has both substance and style. In true Pixar form, its viewers are visually stimulated through its characters who are lovable, relatable and humorous. The story solidly delivers its central theme—the link between over-consumption and environmental degradation—while staying heart-warming and optimistic. As the love struck pair of robots overcome obstacles along their path, they awaken humans from their detached and over indulgent state and assist in guiding Axiom and all its inhabitants back to earth as a safe haven. Wall-E and Eve represent the balanced co-existence between humankind and technology. Ironically, it is they who realize just how sacred life is and what it means to love. Luckily for us, viewers can learn as much about love, life and environmental preservation from these thoroughly charming robots as those aboard the Axiom. --

Persepolis
by Lara Sulzman

Social Issue Themes:
Women’s rights, war, faith/religion, cross-cultural communication

PERSEPOLIS is a dramatic film that uses the universal appeal of animation and strong storytelling to deliver an important and powerful message about the endurance of the human spirit. It is at once original, bold, intimate, and honest while maintaining the lightheartedness and imaginative freedom associated with animation.

PERSEPOLIS situates the audience firmly in the point of view of its main character, Marjane, a symbol of hope for a generation and culture where daily life involves enduring restrictions on outward displays of emotion, identity, and independence. Marjane is strong, independent, and curious, with a burning spirit that refuses to be extinguished by a political environment that denies the value of these qualities.

PERSEPOLIS maintains a sense of humor in the worst of situations, marrying ironic dialogue and narration with a vivid visual portrayal of the contrast between reality and Marjane’s imaginatively perceived reality. Because we can immediately connect with Marjane’s sense of humor and defiant will, the film is able to deliver a powerful social message while entertaining us at the same time. The storytelling techniques are utilized so well that there’s a sense of laughter through tears and a delayed contemplation of the message delivered in each scene.

Though I was at first skeptical of the ability of an animated film to compare to its live action counterparts, the lack of "real" people makes the audience see its characters for their respective personalities, and not for their ethnicity. Similarly, the lack of color (the basis on which we categorize race) allows everyone to look the same. Marjane is a colorful character in a black and white world, though we discover throughout the film that there are many shades of grey in Marjane’s search for personal identity and expression.

The movie portrays Iran and Iranians in a way that defies stereotypes. By combining a history lesson and a coming-of-age story, we witness the effects of the Islamic Revolution as more than just a page in a textbook. For the first time, the veils of Iranian women are lifted so that we may see the individuality and personality underneath. The women in the film - Marjane, her mother, and her grandmother - are strong, powerful, and tenacious.

Ironically, perhaps the only downfall of this film is that it ends abruptly and leaves us wanting more. Its scope is large, traversing decades, countries, regimes, and cultures. Thus, it is nearly impossible to fully address each of these microcosms and deliver a sound resolution in one movie, let alone from one character’s perspective, without feeling incomplete. It would be satisfying to the audience to receive some kind of resolution, or possibly a glimpse into Marjane’s future. Then again, such resolutions do not exist in real life. After spending nearly two animated hours in an imaginative state of suspended disbelief, we inevitably return to the film’s core - reality isn’t always the way we’d like it to be, although that doesn’t mean we can’t express our desire for more.

*Rating Guide
1 spark: weak film; little or no social theme(s) present
2 sparks: ok film; minimal social theme(s) present
3 sparks: average film; clear social theme(s) present
4 sparks: excellent, engaging film; solid social theme(s) present
5 sparks: outstanding, truly original and unique film; strong social theme(s) present