影视听力 第16期:The Visitor不速之客

剧情简介

Walter（理查·詹金斯 Richard Jenkins 饰）的生活一成不变，20多年来教同一门课程，与别人一起合著自己没有出过半分力的书，请私人教师学钢琴又难以与人相处。生活沉闷如一潭死水。直到与他合著出书的shelly待产而无法前去参加学术年会换成Walter出席，他的生命才赢来转变。
　　
由于妻子去世而极少去纽约的Walter一回到纽约的家赫然发现家里有两个陌生人！误会过后才明白这对小情侣是被人所骗才租了这间屋子。Walter让他们留下，Tarek是来自叙利亚的热情的小伙子，热爱打鼓，他的女友则是来自塞内加尔的黑人。Walter被Tarek的开朗所打动，跟他学打鼓，还跟着他去公园参加少数族裔的打鼓练习。
　　
这天Walter与Tarek练习过后赶着回家，过地铁时因为要过鼓Tarek错过了最好的过关卡的机会，从关卡上跳过时被警察逮捕拘留。Walter这才知道他们是非法移民，他为他聘请律师东奔西跑，毫无进展之际Tarek的母亲Mouna（西亚姆·阿巴斯 Hiyam Abbas 饰）因为担心儿子而上门，Walter安抚这位母亲焦急的情绪，带她去纽约四处散心，二人产生一种互相懂得理解的情愫。Walter从学校请了长假，决定留在纽约，去做他认为真正有意义且值得去做的事。
 

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 1 and he's kind of reached a point in his life where he is a little bit bored, maybe a little depressed 2. He doesn't seem to be acutely in mourning for his wife but seems to be adrift and subject to a kind of ennui 3.

That changes in a rather abrupt 4 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 5 things. She makes jewelry 6 that she sells in flea 7 markets. He plays the drums in jazz clubs, also in subway stations and the Central Park.

First Walter is understandably appalled 8 to find these people living in his apartment. But he kind of gets to like them and he feels a little bit of compassion 9 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 10 predictable one about an uptight 11 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 12 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: 跳蚤市场