Patrick Goldstein: “The Visitor”

Recently, we’ve touched on the slump in the indie-film market here and here. But as usual, things are never striclty black and white. Today in the LA Times, Patrick Goldstein takes a look at The Visitor, this summer’s sleeper indie hit, raking in $10M thus far and still playing strong in its 13th week of release. Goldstein asks these questions:

Why has “The Visitor” managed to survive amid so much horrific indie failure? And does it point the way to indie film rejuvenation and revival?

One of the movie’s producers, Michael London, has these observations:

That’s how Overture, a start-up company, came to buy the film for $1 million, a price that’s looking better and better as time goes on. As London bluntly puts it: “If we didn’t find Overture, a new distributor that needed movies, this movie would be on DVD right now. Everyone told us, ‘We love it, but no one’s going to go see it.’ “

But why did everyone get cold feet? London believes the collapse of the specialty market has less to do with audiences abandoning well-made movies than indie film companies abandoning their core business model. “They just got out of touch with what people wanted,” he says. “They got very seduced by movies like ‘Juno’ or ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ that could gross $75 or $100 million. It’s like everyone took a hiatus from their core business, which is supposed to be all about: How do we grow something special?”

Perhaps that’s one of the contributing issues — studios approaching indie-movies with a Juno or Little Miss Sunshine mindsight, looking for home runs from movies which at best should score singles or doubles in box office revenues.

The Visitor is written and directed by the talented Tom McCarthy, who also wrote and directed a gem of a movie The Station Agent (2003). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYQDD8jIHFs