Risky Business

So I watched a really interesting movie this week, The Visitor. It's one that I had originally passed over when it first came out. To be honest the plot synopsis sounded pretty dull: "A widowed college professor travels to New York City to attend a conference and finds a young couple, who turn out to be illegal immigrants, living in his apartment." I know, I know; sounds like excitement a plenty. Watch out G.I. Joe!

But it kept coming up in discussions of challenging, though-provoking film for the last year (I think Netflix's genre description for it was something like "modern-day surrealist mind-bending thought-provoking film with little known foreign actors"; I love Netflix;) So I finally gave in to Netflix's continual suggestion to add it to my queue and watched it last week.

And I am so glad I did. Not only was it well filmed and written with excellent acting, but it left me with all these questions. Without giving away too much of the plot - in case you are inspired to watch it this week as well - let me share with you some of those questions:

Why was the main character willing to risk his job, his money, his well-being, his reputation for people he barely knew - law-breakers at that!?!?

What was the point of the movie since the outcome wasn't really that much different for the immigrants than if they had never met the main character?

When we choose to "help" people in need, what is our motivation? Is it more for them or more for us?

Who is more changed by a person offering to help: the receiver or the giver?

Such good questions for me as I try to figure out what it looks like to follow Christ in meeting people's needs. Let me know your thoughts and questions - with or without this film. God bless!