A 'Visitor' Among Us: Part II

Director Tom McCarthy can be a real cut-up in person. So it's fascinating to hear the quiet, character-driven humor that permeates his two films - "The Station Agent" and the just-released "The Visitor." McCarthy shared some background on "The Visitor" during his recent visit to Denver.

He started writing his latest film after visiting a detention center where illegal immigrants stay while awaiting deportation. "As soon as I walked out I wrote a couple of pages of notes," McCarthy said.

Those visits hit him hard, as they would anyone else who dropped by, he contends.

"It will immediately change your perspective on the issue," he said. True enough, though the film's only heavy-handed moments come with how McCarthy crafts the scenes of the detention centers - and the people who work in these facilities.

Still, "The Visitor" remains a terrific character study that affords a longtime character actor, Richard Jenkins, the chance to play the lead, finally.

"I err on the side of not having a plot," he says of his storytelling. "I gently lead the audience in a way that feels organic and natural." His self-deprecation may be genuine, but it doesn't jibe with the finished product. "The Visitor's" story arc is profoundly moving, and each of the characters evolves in ways that will surely affect the audience. It just doesn't lend itself to a one-sentence description that might move a studio executive.

That didn't stop the film from getting made. The screenplay may have taken two years to complete, but McCarthy says securing the funds to make the film was "ridiculously easy."

"They had a little more faith in me as a storyteller [after "The Station Agent"]," he says.

Funding for his next project could come even easier if the indie studio reps screen "The Visitor."

(Photo: Tom McCarthy, the writer/director of the new drama "The Visitor")