We’ve all heard the over-used “discussion topic” of Grape-nuts: Neither Grapes nor Nuts. Here is what it looks like in movie form.

Thomas McCarthy’s The Visitor is categorized as comedy/drama; a binary genre for a film that does not quite qualify as comedy, but isn’t as gut-wrenching as most dramas.

The plot synopsis could easily go either way. Richard Jenkins plays an unmotivated college professor in Connecticut who comes home to his New York apartment to find illegal immigrants have taken up residence. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? A director could do wonders with a situation like this. But it isn’t funny at all. Instead we glimpse the careful steps and constant worry of non-citizens trying to build a life in the U.S. Haaz Sleimann and Danai Jekesai Gurira play the trespassing couple, and while the three characters establish the awkwardness of the situation well, the anxiety beneath it creates a tension throughout the film.

The audience must confront the hotly-debated controversy of immigration from the perspective of immigrants and those who care for them. This character-driven drama beautifully develops Walter, the slacker college professor, into a passionate, caring individual who breaks away from his black and white view of the world to embrace his own hypocrisy and weakness.

In spite of the emotional overtones and controversial topics, don’t expect to cry too hard. McCarthy keeps things light and bearable. The actors are mighty, but this was not the heavy tearjerker I expected.