Le parloir

THE VISIT / (2000) **1/2 (out of four)

By Blake French:

"The Visit" is based on a stage play by Kosmond Russell, which itself was inspired by personal experiences with his brother in an Ohio prison. Director Jordan Walker-Pearlman added characters from his own circle of experience and synthesized the play with another previously written story to create the screenplay for "The Visit"

"The Visit" is a unique, original experience. It is not merely a prison drama, but a deep, human, passionate story about finding spiritual renewal and inner peace. Jordan Walker-Pearlman had good intentions with this often intriguing motion picture and incorporates solid voice. The movie also embarks the first full-length motion picture from Urban World Films, a new independent film company created to distribute and market minority movies.

The film stars Hill Harper as Alex Waters, a young man sentenced to 25 years in prison because of a rape he insists he did not commit. Alex spends his endless hours behind bars, with only one companion: his prison psychiatrist, Dr. Coles (Phylicia Rashad from "The Bill Cosby Show"), who strives to give Alex a greater awareness of himself.

The movie takes us inside a tortured family including Alex's successful older brother (Obba Babatunde), his unforgiving, controlling father (Billy Dee Williams), and his loving, passionate mother (Marla Gibbs). Along the way we also meet a childhood friend of Alex, an incest survivor named Felicia (Rae Dawn Chong). These characters are forced to reexamine their stance on Alex when they visit him for the first time in a number of years, only to learn he is dying of AIDS. "The Visit" is a smooth ride; there are no road bumps, awkward moments, undeveloped characters, or major plot problems, but something about it kind of feels distant. I think it's the various ideas in the thematic basis that are never completely explored. For instance, Alex insists that he never raped anyone-a massive point. But we never learn the truth, or any important information involving this issue. We don't see why he was convicted or what really happened. A plot hole this big is surely a conscious decision by the filmmakers; they probably thought this was unimportant, and wanted to focus on the movie's emotional, family, and spiritual themes. But whether he did or didn't brutally rape a woman is definitely important. For us to be involved we need to care for the main character, and I do not usually empathize with convicted rapists.

The spiritual aspects are also unclear. We know Alex's family is religious, and we know at the end Alex becomes a changed person because of his spiritual conviction, but we never see those changes. It is a crime for us to spend 107 minutes with a character as complex as Alex, and hear that he experiences complete transformation, but never see it. These little plot holes really skewer the impact of the narrative.

"The Visit" is not without its redeeming factors. Hill Harper ("He Got Game"), who received the Emerging Artist Award at the Chicago International Film Festival in 2000, provides us with a captivating, personal performance. Billy Dee Williams is also in top form, giving a stark, controlling edge to his character. The supporting cast is also very convincing.

"The Visit" contains good morals and a neat style. The format for the storytelling is unusually engaging. The film exposes Alex's inner emotions with fantasy scenes involving him and the different people in his life. Walker-Pearlman and cinematographer John Demps also work hard to create alternatives to the typical cuts back and forth between two characters sitting across from each another. I give the filmmakers credit for tying to produce a movie with a fresh flavor, but we don't fully absorb what we taste here.

The Visit tells the story of a inmate convicted of rape who is looking to a parole after 5 years in prison. In this time period, we watch as he gets visits from his brother, mother, father and an old friend. These visits and his parole board meeting are the strongest parts of the movie filled with good acting (in particular from Harper and Williams), but the film gets lowered due to un-needed dramatic cut-away edits and weird scenes outside of the prison which shouldn't be. Watchable for the redemption scenes, but has it's share of flaws along the way. B+ (just slightly)

I saw this movie last Sunday at the Method Fest in Pasadena, CA. While I must admit that I went simply because Hill Harper was in it, it turned out to be an excellent movie. It moved me. It made me cry, laugh and think. Billy Dee Williams and Marla Gibbs reminded me, in some respects, of my parents. Rae Dawn Chong also reminded me of a relative. Hill Harper's character moved me most, you feel his pain, you know his character is innocent. He is an excellent actor and I'd really like to see much more of him on the big screen.

The synergy of the entire cast was wonderful. They fed off of each other's energy. But of course, without a wonderful director, there is no wonderful film. I would really like to see this film again, I'd like to own a video copy. I hope this film can find it's way into major theaters, it really deserves to be seen by a wider audience.

Easily Hill Harper's best role. African-American movie that really touched me from the bottom of my soul. It's very artistic expression, and strong philosophical approach in the discussions when Visited in prison, brings really something to hold and build on too. Also the sickness he has, and knowing that he will die there, plus his rejected parole on top of everything... just a set of tragic motions. Getting closer with your relatives in prison than outside has been important subject for every prisoner who has nothing but time to kill. Definetly one of my favourite prison movies ever.

Any film about a young black male in prison just BEGS for rhetoric. Add AIDS in the mix, and the traps are everywhere.

This film manages to illuminate more than one of the issues involved in both subjects without ever becoming tendentious or trite. And it does so largely because of the deeply felt work of Hill Harper and the other actors involved. Through shades of rage, neediness, fear, frustration and the most affecting, immediate, infant love, Harper brings us right to the heart of a man who knows he's done wrong, but nonetheless has been done greater wrong.

With all the complex personal and political issues at play here, what shines through and holds the film is the raw, heartbreaking yearning of the main character.

Not that larger situations aren't observed. When his successful businessman brother (played by Obba Bobatunde) comes to visit, the obligatory search by a guard becomes one more humiliation of a black man. This isn't underlined - it's simply shown. His father's rant about how young blacks become what many whites already think they are could come right out of an article on the subject - except that he's talking about his son and the father (uncompromisingly played by Billy Dee Williams)is being his pompous self-satisfied self.

A number of other vignettes refer to larger issues without every losing sight of the specific human stories that we're following.

Everybody in the cast is superb without being flashy: simply real. Rae Dawn Chong remains believable even when her character's relentlessly positive character borders on the Pollyannaish. It's not a surprise that she's luminous in these scenes - that over-used word applies more appropriately to Chong than almost any other actress -, but in the flashbacks showing her as a crack whore she becomes every bit as beaten down and dispairing as she is radiant in redemption.

Also, two scenes are fascinating simply for the freedom of interplay that the director manages to achieve - the parole board's part pompous, part compassionate negotiations and the extended dialogue between Harper and Chong's characters during her first visit. In both, there is that Cassavetes quality of a scene almost veering out of control while continuing to convey its dramatic point.

Though several scenes take place in a church, the film avoids the increasingly cliched use of a gospel choir to suddenly provide an emotional uplift. Yet nontheless, towards the end, we are treated to an extended montage over a unique version of "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child" by the sublime Sweet Honey in the Rock.

That kind of tasteful deflection of expectations informs the whole film. It's really a wonderful piece of work.