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Walter（理查·詹金斯 Richard Jenkins 飾）的生活一成不變，20多年來教同一門課程，與別人一起合著自己沒有出過半分力的書，請私人教師學鋼琴又難以與人相處。生活沉悶如一潭死水。直到與他合著出書的shelly待產而無法前去參加學術年會換成Walter出席，他的生命才贏來轉變。
由于妻子去世而極少去紐約的Walter一回到紐約的家赫然發現家里有兩個陌生人！誤會過后才明白這對小情侶是被人所騙才租了這間屋子。Walter讓他們留下，Tarek是來自敘利亞的熱情的小伙子，熱愛打鼓，他的女友則是來自塞內加爾的黑人。Walter被Tarek的開朗所打動，跟他學打鼓，還跟著他去公園參加少數族裔的打鼓練習。
這天Walter與Tarek練習過后趕著回家，過地鐵時因為要過鼓Tarek錯過了最好的過關卡的機會，從關卡上跳過時被警察逮捕拘留。Walter這才知道他們是非法移民，他為他聘請律師東奔西跑，毫無進展之際Tarek的母親Mouna（西亞姆·阿巴斯 Hiyam Abbas 飾）因為擔心兒子而上門，Walter安撫這位母親焦急的情緒，帶她去紐約四處散心，二人產生一種互相懂得理解的情愫。Walter從學校請了長假，決定留在紐約，去做他認為真正有意義且值得去做的事。
對話文本:(系普特網友整理，文本只包括旁白影評部分，不包括電影原聲。)
The Visitor is the second film written and directed by Tom McCarthy. The first was The Station Agent. In this film, Richard Jenkins plays a professor of economics named Walter Vale. He is a widower and he's kind of reached a point in his life where he is a little bit bored, maybe a little depressed. He doesn't seem to be acutely in mourning for his wife but seems to be adrift and subject to a kind of ennui.
That changes in a rather abrupt and unexpected way when he comes down to New York, where he keeps an apartment that he never really goes to and finds that two people are living there unbeknownst to him. They are Tarek, a young man from Syria and his girlfriend, Zainab who is from Senegal.
Zainab and Tarek are in this country illegally and they support themselves by doing various artistic things. She makes jewelry that she sells in flea markets. He plays the drums in jazz clubs, also in subway stations and the Central Park.
First Walter is understandably appalled to find these people living in his apartment. But he kind of gets to like them and he feels a little bit of compassion for them. And he and Tarek, in particular, strike up a friendship and Tarek even teaches him to play the drums.
Now the story that The Visitor tells could have been a very sentimental predictable one about an uptight square white guy who meets these two soulful people from the third world and is sort of loosened up and gets in touch with himself through his friendship with them. And it is that story but the thing is that Tom McCarthy's direction is very subtle and unsentimental, a little bit dry, but in the best way just lets the story and the characters kind of take shape and unfold against the backdrop of New York.
And the main thing that makes this movie, I think, really special, in spite of some of its limitations is the performance of Richard Jenkins .I would also mention the performance of Hiam Abbass, a Palestinian actress who plays Tarek's mother who shows up later in the film.
But it is really Richard Jenkins as Walter who gives a very quiet, understated restrained performance as a man who's fundamentally decent but repressed, a little out of touch with his own emotions, who changes. He doesn't change in a dramatic, transformational overdone Hollywood way, but the way that people actually change by noticing things about himself and by slightly correcting some of his views of other people. And it's really his performance and this character that make The Visitor such a satisfying and interesting movie.
ennui: weariness of mind caused by lack of anything interesting or exciting to do; feeling of boredom unbeknownst: happening or existing without the knowledge of someone specified ― usually used with to
flea market: 跳蚤市場
