Bronwen and I both really liked this, Tom McCarthy’s second movie. His first, “The Station Agent,” was excellent. Once you get beyond the conceit of the situation, this is a stellar drama with fine acting and deeply humane plot-lines. Walter, an economics professor played superbly by Richard Jenkins who was nominated for an Oscar for this role, is at loose ends in his life. His beloved wife is dead, his son lives in London. He has lost all love of craft and teaching. He is horrible to his students. He has no zest for life at all. Wine is his solace. His department chair forces him to go to NYC to deliver a paper he has supposedly co-authored with a younger colleague He enters his NYC apartment, not visited for years, and finds it occupied by a young couple, a young Syrian drummer, Tarek, Haaz Sleiman, and his girlfriend, Zanaib, (Danai Gurira) a Malian jewelry maker. The conceit is that despite the shock, he lets them stay. Once we accept this unlikely twist, the plot works brilliantly. The script is superb, the emotions are quite genuine, the acting is wonderful, and the drumming is a total trip. The marvelous Hiam Abbas rounds out the cast as Tarek’s mother. The journey is not a happy one. Immigration problems and the black box of post-9/11 American immigration and homeland security make for painful decisions. But there is also real character development and even joyful growth. This is a wonderful film that, in a way, resonates in much the same way McCarthy’s first movie did with an isolated individual taking steps to reinvent and reawaken himself. See this film!