Although cultural generalisations with a national basis are frowned on, it has long been a given among some parts of the British intelligentsia that the Americans, poor things, have no sense of irony. The week’s film releases provide occasional proof to the contrary; sometimes subtly, sometimes unambiguously enough even for the average BBC arts pundit to grasp.

The Visitor is pervaded by a gentle irony: the American juxtaposition of icons of freedom – cheery propaganda posters remind us that the home of the brave’s strength lies in its immigrants – with the Kafkaesque state machine that devours outsiders, imprisons them for the vaguest reasons and can whisk them into oblivion with the wave of a bad fairy’s wand. The blind, windowless block that serves as a detention centre in the borough of Queen’s features as much as the Statue of Liberty in Walter Vale’s view of New York. Vale is a widower, an academic from Connecticut with no zest left for his teaching or interest in his students. He joylessly takes piano lessons in memory of his musician wife. Not a bad man, he has simply withered.