Walter Vale (Jenkins), an economics professor at Connecticut College, is detached, even when hunched over a piano, robotically plunking the keys. He knows the notes, but can't make the music. One who seems permanently stuck in his discomfort zone, Walter is a stranger in his own home.
In this movie written and directed by Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent), Walter goes on the predictable journey from emotional detachment to human connection, from milquetoast Connecticut to multiculti Manhattan.
But there's nothing predictable about how McCarthy conceives this loner and how Jenkins plays him. (Yes, fans of The Wire, while wearing his actor hat McCarthy played unscrupulous journalist Scott Templeton.) Jenkins is the classic case of the shy, soft-spoken man who draws listeners toward him.
When his department chair orders Walter to attend a conference in Manhattan, he reluctantly drives to his Greenwich Village pied-a-terre. There the long-hibernating bear finds the counterparts of Goldilocks sitting in his chair, eating his porridge, sleeping in his bed.
Knowing how rarely Walter visits New York, a scam artist has "rented" his apartment to an upbeat Syrian musician, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), and his suspicious Senegalese girlfriend, Zainab (Danai Gurira). They are illegal immigrants, and more at home in Walter's home than he is.
Rather than call the cops, Walter asks the interlopers to stay. Without realizing it, the three improvise a family.
To disclose any more plot would spoil the ensuing fun and drama. But I will add that Hiam Abbass, the lovely Arab Israeli actress, is on hand in this movie, as heartbreaking as it is hopeful, in which Walter is a symbol of America inching toward connection with other nations.
