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Synopsis
In a
world of six billion people, it only takes one to change
your life. In actor and filmmaker Tom McCarthy's follow-up
to his award winning directorial debut The Station Agent,
Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) stars as a disillusioned
Connecticut economics professor whose life is
transformed by a chance encounter
in New York City.
Sixty-two-year-old Walter Vale (Jenkins) is sleepwalking
through his life. Having lost his passion for teaching and
writing, he fills the void by unsuccessfully trying to learn
to play classical piano. When his college sends him to
Manhattan to attend a conference, Walter is surprised to
find a young couple has taken up residence in his apartment.
Victims of a real estate scam, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a
Syrian man, and Zainab (Danai Gurira), his Senegalese
girlfriend, have nowhere else to go. In the first of a
series of tests of the heart, Walter reluctantly allows the
couple to stay with him.
Touched by his kindness, Tarek, a talented musician, insists
on teaching the aging academic to play the African drum. The
instrument's exuberant rhythms revitalize Walter's faltering
spirit and open his eyes to a vibrant world of local jazz
clubs and Central Park drum circles. As the friendship
between the two men deepens, the differences in culture, age
and temperament fall away.
After being stopped by police in the subway, Tarek is
arrested as an undocumented citizen and held for
deportation. As his situation turns desperate, Walter finds
himself compelled to help his new friend with a passion he
thought he had long ago lost. When Tarek's beautiful mother
Mouna (Hiam Abbass) arrives unexpectedly in search of her
son, the professor's personal commitment develops into an
unlikely romance.
And it's through these new found connections with these
virtual strangers that Walter is awakened to a new world and
a new life. - Overture Films
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