The Station Agent

The Station Agent

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DVD Reviews of The Station Agent

DVD Review: Letting It Unfold
Summary: 4 Stars

Peter Dinklage plays the lead role in "The Station Agent". He is Finbar McBride, a solitary man who works with an older black gentleman named Henry in a Main Street-style shop which sells & repairs model trains. Henry and Fin are train enthusiasts, and even watch home movies other people have made that are nothing more than different camera angles of trains. When Henry dies suddenly, Fin discovers that his friend has bequeathed him a half-acre of land in Newfoundland, New Jersey. On the land is an old train depot, where the station agent used to reside. Here is where Fin decides he will go and live, and it is where the main point of the movie begins.

Across the tracks from the train depot is Joe, an obviously lonely young man who runs a portable coffee and hot dog stand. He quickly rushes to befriend Fin, but finds it at first to be of some difficulty. Fin, you see, is a dwarf, and has put up a protective barrier to shield himself from what can often be an unkind and unthinking humanity. When Joe invites Fin to the local tavern, the dwarf refuses. We later find out why. Though Fin tries to separate himself from people, he is only human, and therefore becomes resentful of his home-made prison of loneliness. This leads to him eventually accepting Joe's goofy version of friendship. The third lonely person added to the mix is Olivia, a forty-something woman who has recently lost her child through death, and her husband through mutual separation. Olivia is not only lonely, but also fragile and unstable. Together these three lost souls attempt to bolster each other through simple companionship. Sometimes it works, while other times it doesn't. Add into the mix two more lonely people: a young librarian woman who takes a physical interest in Fin, and a little girl named Cleo who likes to hang out with Fin and old abandoned trains more than with kids her own age, and you have a movie full of disheartened, dejected characters.

But "The Station Agent" is certainly a unique film. It moves at its own pace, and tells its story through what the characters say, rather than what they explain. Have you ever noticed that, in most movies, if a character has some deep, dark pain in their life, there will inevitably come a scene (or perhaps multiple scenes) where the character will unload and explain everything that's going on with them? They will provide life history, present angst, and maybe even future worries. Not so with "The Station Agent". You'd just better pay attention to what these people say, as unimportant as it sometimes may sound, and as infrequently as it may come, if you want to grasp what's really going on with them and what their roles are within the film. This is not a movie for relaxing and letting your mind glaze over. This is a movie which treats the viewer with respect. It assumes you are intelligent and alert. And I appreciate that. My only real complaint with the film is that there are still some unanswered questions that the writer/director could have taken some time in answering, although I suppose they are not super-vital to the story.

The acting job by the three leads - Peter Dinklage as Fin, Bobby Cannavale as Joe, and Patricia Clarkson as Olivia, is realistic and superb. These definitely feel like characters, not actors. If the locations used for Newfoundland, New Jersey are not real, then they sure did a good job making them seem as if they were. There is such a flavor of truth to the whole film that it can only help propel it to a higher level of entertainment. And a special mention should be made for Stephen Trask, incidental music composer. His work here fits in perfectly with the mood of the movie.

"The Station Agent" is not your typical movie-going experience, but that is a good thing. It is a slowly unfolding film about lonely people who find each other and do what they can to help themselves through the kind of companionship that only humanity can provide, in its unique, quirky way. It doesn't explain, it simply 'is'. The characters seem like real people, and we find that they are easy to relate to. Already you have the pieces in place for a great movie. And "The Station Agent" does not fail in that regard.

Description of The Station Agent