The Station Agent **** (2003, Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale, Michelle Williams) – Classic Movie Review 2621

Writer-director Thomas McCarthy’s 2003 film is a gorgeously sweet and moving movie about a 4feet 6inch guy called Finbar ‘Fin’ McBride (Peter Dinklage) who has a deep love of railways. Fin has achondroplastic dwarfism, feels ostracised and keeps to himself, apart from his best and only buddy, the elderly and similarly taciturn Henry Styles (Paul Benjamin).

But Henry dies suddenly. Fin is told that Hoboken model train hobby shop, where he worked for Henry, is to be closed. Henry’s will provides for him and he inherits from him an abandoned train depot in the Newfoundland section of West Milford, New Jersey. There he simply seeks solitude.

The train station used in the movie.

Though damaged and just wanting to be alone, he gets involved with a cheery Cuban American hot-dog salesman called Joe Oramas (Bobbby Cannavale) and a troubled middle-aged painter named Olivia Harris (Patricia Clarkson).

Other neighbours he reluctantly gets involved with are young African American girl Cleo (Raven Goodwin), who shares Fin’s interest in trains and finally convinces him to lecture her class about them, and local librarian Emily (Michelle Williams), upset to find she is pregnant by her ne’er-do-well boyfriend.

The Station Agent is a hard one to sell, maybe, but it’s so heart-warming and life-affirming that it could easily move the susceptible to tears.

Dinklage is superb, and Clarkson and Cannavale are spot on, too. An experience to share, with acting and scripting of this high calibre, it’s one of those rare movies you want to hug.

Also in the cast are Josh Pais, Richard Kind, Marla Sucharetza, Jayce Bartok, Joe Lo Truglio and John Slattery.

McCarthy’s script won him the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and the San Sebastián Film Festival. On release by distributors Miramax in 2003, it earned $8,679,814, well above its estimated $500,000 production budge.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2621

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