Critics reviews

This is a wonderful film, sad, angry, and without a comforting little happy ending. But I must not describe what happens, because the whole point of serious fiction is to show people changing, and how they change in "The Visitor" is the film's beauty. So much goes unsaid, and unseen... We are left to listen to the silences and observe the spaces.

The Visitor is a film that hangs together as a whole, the images carefully framed, scenes constantly echoing each other and it is memorably acted by all four principals.

The drama of the couple's illegal status in the US unfolds in a basically predictable manner, though there is a strong and winning performance from Hiam Abbass as Tarek's mother, Mouna.

The Visitor may not be to everyone's taste – while solidly-crafted and impeccably-intentioned, there's the same kind of middle-of-the-road, safe-hands feel that took some of the edge off McCarthy's BAFTA-winning 2003 debut, The Station Agent.

McCarthy makes a serious point about immigration without losing his lightness of touch, and he’s assisted by terrific turns by Jenkins and Sleiman.

The Visitor, featuring an award-caliber performance by Richard Jenkins as the prof, is a heartfelt human drama that sneaks up and floors you. In only his second film as writer and director, following his acclaimed 2003 debut with The Station Agent, Tom McCarthy is already that rare talent who can work in miniature to reveal major truths.

McCarthy's approach is much truer to life, in which people enter and depart another's personal orbit without causing earth-shattering alterations in behavior or relationships. By definition, that means that not much occurs in The Visitor, yet it is never uninteresting to watch.

The curious thing about “The Visitor” is that even as it goes more or less where you think it will, it still manages to surprise you along the way.

As with The Station Agent, The Visitor is a low-key, naturalistic, beautifully observed character study about the quiet angst of the buttoned-down soul. It's an actors' showcase characterized by subtlety and restraint rather than flashy histrionics...

Wisely, McCarthy paces his movie around his star — an artist who inhabits, rather than visits, the characters he plays.

McCarthy once again proves himself to be refreshingly out-of-step with the indie mainstream, taking an improbable set-up and patiently observing as his damaged but likeable characters work their way through it. Despite its contrivances, the film is a work of quiet, restrained empathy.

“The Visitor” touches on both personal and political issues, but is never about those issues... McCarthy is firmly in control of every moment of his film, from the lines actors speak to the selection and use of locations.