The Visit

I saw this at the Chicago Film Festival when it premiered, and as such was able to attend a talk back with the director, Jordan Walker Pearlman, and Hill Harper. Pearlman explained how he truly did believe that he was insane, while Harper joked about how "City of Angels" (2000) was probably not going to survive due to its competitive schedule. I'm just pointing this out to note that my opinion might be slightly biased, because I really did enjoy talking to these two people. I can truthfully say that this was the best film at the Festival.

The movie centers on the prison visitations Hill Harper's character receives from his family. (Mainly his brother, Tony) He must struggle to find hope and wishes to say his good-byes while he is still health. (He is dying of AIDS) These struggles he has to overcome include an unforgiving father, the parole board, an old crush, and ultimately his bought with AIDS. This movie made me feel sad and free at the same time. This is a celebration of the human spirit in a very bleak situation. The visit does move a little slow, but it was not intended to move quickly. The acting is outstanding form every cast member. It is an important picture, but is low on replay value. This was an experience, and I wouldn't want to corrupt the original viewing by seeing again. The ultimate message was very touching and still sticks with me. That's why I'd give this film a nine. I strongly suggest The Visit, but I do not ever wish to see it again.

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)

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.

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.

I fell asleep with the t.v. on and woke up to find this film. That was the end of the night. I was riveted to the tube. The performances were flawless and so real that I entered into the film and was right there with all of them. Each character was moving and understandable. You have met all of them in your lifetime. It was so moving. The tears flowed and I was taken on a journey into his life. It didn't matter that we did not see what transpired to bring him into prison. You had to believe in him and believe in his innocence to really feel where he was at. The brother summed up what the journey was all about when he spoke at the funeral. It just verbalized what I saw happening and that the prison of his anger was where the real bars existed and that had to be removed by him and only him to allow freedom. What superb metaphor! And we all can relate. I truly would see the movie again and again and am seeking a copy to keep. It is a masterpiece in a celluloid world where few exist.