Richard Jenkins would have made an improbable but worthy winner of an Oscar for his performance as Walter Vale in ‘The Visitor’. He plays an economics professor going through the motions and gives a masterly portrayal of loneliness and quiet desperation.
One of the strengths of this film is that it leaves details to the viewers imagination and doesn’t feel the need to over explain. In the movies’ opening scenes, the dismissal of a piano teacher and the refusal to accept a late assignment from a student illustrate with admirable economy the coldness of Walter and the dullness of his working life. Walter is a widower and his wife was a classical pianist – it remains unclear whether his sleepwalking state is as the result of grief for her passing or if his life and personality was on a downward spiral even before she died.
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