The Visitor
I watched a movie tonight. Which, if you know me, is not at all strange. My friends would say that I’m a bit of a movie addict, and getting a Netflix subscription has only played in to my weakness.
It’s a funny thing… in my four years of college, I was pretty busy. Swimming took up a lot of time, and the New Media program was always demanding – each year, I thought it was demanding, and until partway through senior year, it would always get more demanding. Early on, I got hooked on movie trailers, but I so rarely could find time to see movies. Besides, during large sections of my college career, if I did carve out a little free time, it seemed like I never could find anyone to see a movie with. The other problem: for some reason, watching movies was “something I did with other people.” I’d watch movies that I’d seen before by myself, but for some reason, I felt like discovering a new movie alone was somehow a little strange or pathetic.
Needless to say, I’ve gotten over that. Towards the end of school, I started putting together a movie list – classic movies I’d never seen, movies other people recommend, or movies whose trailers I’d seen but hadn’t gotten a chance to check out. It’s a pretty long list.
So all of that is a long way around saying that I’ve been watching lots of movies since moving to SLC. And I like movies, I’m often a pretty easy critic – I can recognize that a movie is pretty bad and still find a lot of enjoyment in it. Tonight, though, I watched a film that really grabbed me in a way that doesn’t happen very often.
The Visitor, written and directed by Thomas McCarthy, is the story of a depressed, disaffected college professor who reluctantly comes to New York City for a conference. He has not been to his New York apartment for years, but upon returning to it, discovers that a young immigrant couple is living in it. What follows… well, I don’t want to tell you all about it, because you should find a copy and see it. It’s a very human movie – about healing, about discovery, about secrets, about giving up, and about not giving up. I loved it. So please, check it out.
