Textual Analysis Essay

“The Terminal,” directed by Steven Spielberg, narrates the story of Viktor Navorski
(Tom Hanks) who travels from Eastern Europe to visit New York. Before landing at JKF airport,
Norvaski’s country experiences a political instability leading to a change in regime. On arriving
at the airport, he is informed by Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci) that his visa is invalid, leaving him
stack at the airport because he can neither enter New York nor travel back home. The
immigration officials hold Narvorski back, He is “unacceptable” for entry in America. Unlike
other immigrants with the facing similar challenge, Narvoski is unwilling to sneak out into the
country hence ends up living in the airport. His case causes a problem to Tucci, a bureaucrat
looking to be promoted. Tucci just want the problem to go away.

Navorski’s story not only brings to light the bureaucracy that lies at the US airports, but
the major reason behind the bureaucratic procedure the immigrants faces when trying to enter the
united states. The United States has a long history of immigration debate. The discussion always
rotates around the country’s way of handling the immigrants from different parts of the world.
The favoritism that the country employs in receiving immigrants has been pointed to lack of trust
based on nationalism. It springs out from the point that we are difference and these differences
are largely irreconcilable, thus the reason to keep different people at arm’s length. Navorski has
a limited English skills and is only able to tell the name of the local hotel. He does not get into
much details on where he is going and the reason for his visit. The language barrier depicts the
cultural distance between Novarski and the US citizens, including the officers who holds him
back at the airport. Therefore, he fells a victim of the systematic bureaucracy that faces such
immigrants. However, we later see Novarski later is accustomed to living at the airport, and
more importantly, making a family from the surrounding people, including the stateless refugees.
While this takes some time to materialize, it finally happens. Narvoski employs survival skills
that not only help him to adopt with people but with the entire environment. He even learns
English. Finally, the people surrounding Norvaski could trust him, showing that our differences
are just limited surface barriers that should not affect our relations.

The movie perfectly illustrate the challenges that immigrants face when trying to enter
the United states due to bureaucracy. The actors are well suited for their roles and Novarski, with
his nervousness at the beginning of the movie, clearly shows the feeling that the immigrants have
when they face such challenges. However, the movie is too long and viewers may lost
concentration at the middle of the storyline. It also uses tough vocabularies that could be
challenging especially to those who do not understand English well.