December 12, 2003
The Station Agent Review
The Station Agent is a quiet, character-driven drama about a few outsiders slowly developing a relationship, so the best advice I could give as to whether or not to see the film is simply whether or not you liked Lost in Translation (it also reminded me somewhat of Ruby in Paradise). There isn’t all that much in terms of plot, so you either like these sort of films or you don’t. But it’s a shame if you don’t.
The film is about a man named Fin who struggles mightily to be taken seriously because, well… he’s a dwarf. When we’re introduced to him, we see various people reacting to him as you might expect, and his response is to completely ignore the reactions with a resigned acceptance and just deal with people as little as possible, thus living a completely solitary lifestyle.
The film starts out in a quiet fashion, following Fin around in his daily routine. When circumstances force Fin to move into a train station in Newfoundland, the pace picks up a bit as a couple of quirky people start forcing themselves into his life: Joe, a persistent and talkative hot-dog vendor, and Olivia, a klutzy woman who accidentally runs Fin off the road a couple of times and desperately tries to make it up to him. He also later makes the acquaintance of a young girl, Cleo, and a pretty librarian, played by Michelle Williams (yes, from Dawson’s Creek). The film centers around the quietly developing relationships between Fin and these characters, specifically Joe and Olivia, who have issues of their own.
The appearance of these amusing characters has the odd effect that the most serious person onscreen is the one who appears unintentionally comic. And then you realize that Fin’s demeanor is a defense mechanism — that he doesn’t have the luxury of acting like Joe or Olivia. Indeed, he initially tries to keep them out of his life and continue his loner lifestyle, immersing himself in his one hobby, trains. But eventually, they force their way in, and Fin slowly begins to reveal more of what he staunchly conceals within him. As you might expect, he has a good deal of pent-up hatred and resentment for what he is. One telling revelation is when Joe asks if Fin’s ever had sex, and Fin has… but only with “regular-sized people”, not with any other dwarfs (I can kinda relate to that on a lesser extent, having grown up resenting my Asian-ness, which probably explains my attraction to non-Asian women, indeed marrying a light-skinned Latina — one who’s had similar issues with her own culture, interestingly enough).
In addition, there are some interesting themes. For example, a couple of times during the film, characters are discovered in situations that are misleading, which reflects Fin’s predicament in a nutshell. In addition, there’s a constant comparison and contrasting of trains and telephones, specifically in how they bring people together. Of course trains are rarely used that way nowadays, due to how slow they are (now confined to moving freight around cheaply), while phones are ubiquitous and provide instant communication. However, in this film, Fin’s interest in trains serves to bring him together with Joe and Olivia, whereas cell phones are constantly separating people by interrupting conversations. Indeed, I can’t recall seeing anybody in the film happy while talking on the phone. Joe is always arguing with his father on it, Olivia avoids answering calls altogether, and Fin doesn’t even own a single phone. That, combined with the slow, easy-going pace of Fin’s life (and the film) seems to be an indictment of our society’s obsession with instant results and an assertion that the best things in life come slowly and gradually. After all, it takes time to get to know someone, and it does people a disservice to judge them by their appearances.
First-time writer/director Thomas McCarthy does a good job depicting these interesting characters and staying out of the way while his material unfolds. But what really drives this film is the acting, which is all very naturalistic and believable and quickly makes you care about these characters. Peter Dinklage does a superb, understated job playing a character that is, later in the film, self-described as “just a simple, boring person” with the curse of being treated by other people as anything but that. Bobby Cannavale is a revelation as the affable Joe who craves constant conversation. And I’ve always like Patricia Clarkson, who plays Olivia, ever since I saw her in Murder One as the head lawyer’s wife. She brings an elegant grace and gravity to a role that could easily have come off as ditzy.
A common complaint with this film is its somewhat abrupt ending. I do think it could have benefited with lingering on the final scene a beat longer, but otherwise I thought it made perfect sense to end when it did. Even then, it’s a slight mar on an enjoyable and thought-provoking quiet little film.
Overall rating: 9 out of 10 smiley fishies.
