film: The visitor

The Visitor is a film by the writer/director who made The Stationmaster. If you didn't see that one, rent it. It's funny, off beat, and touching, which is what a lot of good small films achieve, I guess. Anyway, I loved it. This isn't that good but it is good and it is interesting in a way message films are. The message seems true and important. The film is about the experience of being illegal in the US and so being hopeful and scared and often mistreated. The story is good because the characters are real, vulnerable, understated, well acted. The filming is sophisticated. I think that the presence of a message is what undercuts the film as "art" while it's the message--the plight of people who find themselves in this sad, difficult condition is what makes the film worth seeing. And I would see it!