Professor Walter lives pedantically organized life in Connecticut where he teaches one class a semester while working on his book. He is set in his ways, unforgiving and lonely.
When he is being sent to a conference in New York to present a paper he co-authored, he is very unwilling to go. Only thinly veiled administrative threats persuade him to break his routine and go.
Walter enters his apartment instantly suspicious as things are not what he expects, but he gets a real shock he opens the bathroom door to find a young, black woman in his bathtub.
It is a mutual shock, soon to be shared by the woman’s boyfriend, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman). They were all duped: a man called Ivan had rented the apartment to the couple; naturally he did not mention that the apartment has an absent owner. Nor did he mention the arrangement to the professor.
The young couple apologizes and leaves. Of course, they have no where to go, it’s already dark outside and when it all comes together Walter invites them back for a couple of days, just to sort something out.
An odd sort of friendship develops between the dry, smart professor, the emphatic young musician Tarek, and the vary young jewelry maker Zainab (Danai Gurira). The kind that occasionally develops in difficult circumstances among people who would otherwise never meet, not have any desire to meet one another.
Then Tarek is arrested in the subway while helping the professor, Walter feels guilty and tries to help. He finds out that his friends are illegal immigrant, Senegalese and Syrian.
Five days late Tarek’s Mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), arrives, her son stopped calling her and she worries. Walter tells her what has happened. He learns that Mouna and Tarek applied for an asylum, were denied, appealed, were denied. Tarek will very likely be deported. Walter engages an immigration attorney and they wait.
The impersonality of the system is, of course, part of the story. The detention center that resembles high security prison. The lack of information. The presence of indifferent power. It is made clear that all this takes place after 9/11, but I wonder if it ever was any different.
It is not that we do not have highly qualified people who could make the asylum seeking process both efficient and human; it is that we don’t use them. Our bureaucracy is not set to work humanly and efficiently. It processes” problems” with the least of effort by the lowest echelons hired on ridiculous formulas that totally obscure their lack of qualification. That, among other things, is exposed in this film.
It is very classical film, with linearly unfolding story, classically shot in slower that current convention tempo, although it is not dragging, framed and edited.
Richard Jenkins belongs to the rare sort of actors who by the tiniest change of expression, the slightest of movements can communicate a lot. He is wonderfully suited to the role of an inert intellectual, and his portrait is as sadly human as possible for a character that understands even the inevitability of fate. Hiam Abbass uses the same technique, equally effectively which makes the scenes between them pure joy to watch; their choices so wonderfully understated, yet so crucial. The bounding energy of Tarek and the thoughtful Zenobia complete the set very well.
It does not preset one problem with one answer. It presents a complex situation that has no simple answer. In that, as in most things portrayed, it is realistic. These days that deserves a lot of attention.
Directed and written by Thomas McCarthy. With Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Jekesai Gurira.
