The Station Agent
The Station Agent
R | 05 December 2003 (USA)
The Station Agent Trailers

When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.

Reviews
Hellen

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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Stephan Hammond

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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Aneesa Wardle

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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Geraldine

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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glorious-28154

I did kinda like this movie at first but then the anti-while male agenda of it became clear, and people will say but the dwarf is a white male, yes he is, but he's also a dwarf so that makes him a minority so the dwarf doesnt get any hate for being a white male & gets depicted as a human, all the other white males in this movie are basically depicted as aholes and animals.

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Maurizio

...to get back to the moment when I got the idea of watching this film, so I can slap myself out of it. I can't believe the scoring this movie is getting here. It's a total bore-fest of a story about three boring people living a boring life in a boring place where the hype of the day is spotting trains passing by. Wow, big deal. There is a good way of making a movie about trainspotting, as we all know, and it's not this one. The main character is totally unlikable. Rude, unfriendly, he hardly speaks to anybody, often leaving questions unanswered, or answered with a mere monosyllabic word. The other two characters add nothing to the enjoyability of the show. There is no story, no plot, just nothing but scattered, annoying chatting and a lot of trainspotting. The few moments of drama come far too late, when the emotional attachment to the characters is ultimately compromised, and anyway are not depicted with enough intensity. There's just nothing that works here. If you're out of sleeping pills, then watch this movie. Otherwise, avoid it like the plague.

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ssaimeri

The Station AgentThe Station Agent is a quiet story of a man (Peter Dinklage) and his quest to go throughout life unnoticed. Unfortunately for the main character he cannot, his quietly calm demeanor does little to affect the notions of an average man or woman who sees him.Everywhere he goes there is a break in the script of this normal man's life. A gasp from an unsuspecting bystander, a quick joke from a naïve group of children, the noticing never stops for Fin who dreams of unsolicited solitude.The movie begins with the main character moving to rural New Jersey as a result of his best friend dying. In his best friends will he is left a train stop and a small parcel of land. So with little holding him to his current life he makes the quick decision to head to Newfoundland, New Jersey.Fin shows up intending on nothing but a quiet life in a land of fewer people but receives something unexpected. Joe (Bobby Cannavale), a Cuban American who's helping his father with business, introduces himself to Fin the first morning he is there and doesn't let him rest until they are comfortable friends. Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) the third member of this unlikely friendship is a woman whose heart is pure but fragile and wants to open up again but is unsure how. The three friends navigate their lives separately at first but converge slowly and surely as the film progresses, creating a relationship reserved for those who have experienced a depth of emotion that most cannot. Love, Loss, and Empathy are the themes of this wonderful story and they create a fabric that I have seen little of in this textile industry.

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sddavis63

Peter Dinklage is a very familiar face. Anyone who watches movies has seen him. Whenever Hollywood needs a "little person" to fill a role, he's the obvious choice. He's a good actor. Because of his size, though, his roles tend to be somewhat limited, and most of the movies I've seen him in have him playing a secondary character whose purpose seems to be to add a bit of a comedic note that revolves around his short stature. As an example, I think of his turn as children's author Miles Finch in "Elf" - where what I remember him for mostly is his very funny confrontation with Will Ferrell's Buddy the Elf. So, generally (and perhaps inevitably) his stature becomes something to laugh at - not in an offensive way, but because it becomes the focal point of usually very funny scenes. One reason I liked "The Station Agent" though was that it gave Dinklage a meatier role. His stature is still front and centre (how could it not be) but it isn't really what the movie is about. The movie is about friendship and trust - and instead of playing a secondary character, Dinklage is clearly the star of this movie, and demonstrates his talent, showing that he can carry a movie , doing more than just filling a niche.His character in this is Finbar McBride. Fin's life revolves apparently around one friend and one interest. His friend is Henry, and his interest is trains. Henry owns a store devoted to train memorabilia, but dies early in the movie, leaving Fin alone and with nothing - except for a rundown old train station that Henry left him in his will. Travelling to Newfoundland, New Jersey, Fin takes up residence in the station and seems quite prepared to live as a hermit.You feel a certain sympathy for Fin at this point. Clearly there are major trust issues. In your mind, you start to create a backstory for him. I would expect that he had dealt with a lifetime of ridicule and being made fun of, and now the only person who had ever accepted him and the only person he had ever really trusted (Henry) was gone. Why not become a recluse? Why not just say "screw the world," take up residence in the station and ignore everyone and everything- except the trains that he's so taken with? That would be tempting. If I were in Fin's shoes I might well make that choice as well.But being a recluse isn't easy. Inevitably, people appear. It starts with Joe (Bobby Cannavale), who operates a food truck and sets up business right outside the abandoned station every morning. Then there's Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), who almost runs him down (twice!) - a separated woman with a tragic history revolving around the death of her young son. There's Cleo (Raven Goodwin), a young girl who's a bit overweight and finds Fin intriguing, and there's Emily (Michelle Williams), the local librarian who's pregnant and in an apparently abusive relationship. Those four characters (mostly the first two) become the circle around Fin. All start off intrigued by Fin - but not only by his size. In this sense, the movie isn't stereotypical in its presentation of dwarfism. They're also intrigued by Fin the person - the station he lives in, his interest in trains. Those characters and their reaction to and interest in Fin allow Dinklage to play a very serious role. It's not without humour, but the humour isn't at his expense, or at the expense of dwarfism. It's just a natural humour that arises from the situations he finds himself in - and, humour aside, the movie isn't a comedy. It's a very serious portrayal of the struggles someone like Fin might have in bonding with people, developing trust and making friendships. It's not an exciting movie, nor is it an action movie. In some ways it's a rather slow, meandering story that doesn't lead up to any one particularly great climax - but it's interesting all the way through and satisfying in the end. Well done by all involved.I want to give mention to director Thomas McCarthy for some extremely good camera work in this - which does, in fact, focus on Dinklage and his size - but in a definitely respectful way that added to the story. McCarthy manages to shoot some scenes in a way that make Dinklage look even smaller than he is - you get a sort of "one little man against a big world" sense from those scenes that's very appropriate to the story. Then there are other scenes which are filmed in a way that you don't even notice that Fin is small. He just fits in with the rest of the characters and you don't pay attention to his size - again appropriate to those points in the story where this is done, as Fin becomes not "one little man" but just "a man" who has to deal with life as it comes at him - and sometimes as it comes at those he has chosen to befriend. Overall, a very well done movie. (8/10)

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