The Station Agent
The Station Agent | |
---|---|
Miramax Films | |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 90 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $500,000 |
Box office | $8.7 million[2] |
The Station Agent is a 2003 American
Plot
Finbar McBride, a quiet, unmarried man with dwarfism, has a deep love of railroads and lives a solitary existence. He works in a Hoboken, New Jersey, model train hobby shop owned by his elderly and similarly taciturn friend Henry. He keeps to himself and is uncomfortable when people react to his size.
When Henry dies Fin learns that the hobby shop is to be closed, and that Henry has bequeathed him a rural property with an abandoned train depot on it. He moves into the old building hoping for a life of solitude but becomes reluctantly enmeshed in the lives of his neighbors.
Joe, relentlessly upbeat and talkative, cracks Fin's reserve. The two take daily walks along the tracks, and after Olivia gives Fin a movie camera, Joe drives alongside a passing train so that Fin can film it. Joe and Fin sleep at Olivia's house after watching the footage and the next morning meet a flustered, unannounced David. The trio's tentative friendship is threatened when Olivia descends into a deep
Olivia, Joe, and Fin share a meal at Olivia's house, their conversation filled with some small talk and reconciliation. Olivia and Joe tease Fin about Emily, suggesting he seek her again.
Cast
- Peter Dinklage as Finbar McBride
- Patricia Clarkson as Olivia Harris
- Bobby Cannavale as Joe Oramas
- Michelle Williams as Emily
- Raven Goodwin as Cleo
- Paul Benjamin as Henry Styles
- Jayce Bartok as Chris
- Joe Lo Truglio as Danny
- John Slattery as David
- Lynn Cohen as Patty
- Richard Kind as Louis Tiboni
- Josh Pais as Carl
Production
The Station Agent was shot on 16 mm film in 20 days with a budget of half a million dollars.[3]
According to writer-director
Reception
The film premiered at the
The film received a very positive response from critics. It has a rating of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 160 reviews with an average rating of 8.00/10. The website's critical consensus states, "A sweet and quirky film about a dwarf, a refreshment stand operator, and a reclusive artist connecting with one another."[4] It also has a score of 81 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 36 reviews.[5]
Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times observed, "Tom McCarthy has such an appreciation for quiet that it occupies the same space as a character in this film, a delicate, thoughtful and often hilarious take on loneliness . . . It's the kind of appetizing movie you want to share with others."[6]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said, "[T]his is a comedy, but it's also sad, and finally, it's simply a story about trying to figure out what you love to do and then trying to figure out how to do it . . . It is a great relief . . . that The Station Agent is not one of those movies in which the problem is that the characters have not slept with each other and the solution is that they do. It's more about the enormous unrealized fears and angers that throb beneath the surfaces of their lives."[7]
Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "as touching and original a movie as you're likely to see this year" and "a remarkably assured first film."[8]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said, "Tom McCarthy has a gift for funny and touching nuances . . . The three actors could not be better. Huge feelings are packed into this small, fragile movie. It's something special."[9]
James Christopher of The Times stated, "The brilliance of Peter Dinklage's performance as the ironclad loner is that he doesn’t much care. Yet there’s something deeply affecting about his stoicism and suspicion that has nothing to do with artificial sweeteners, Disney sentiment, or party political broadcasts on behalf of dwarfs. Dinklage just gets on with his performance like an actor who can't understand why he's got the lead role. It's this tension between the film and the unwilling Romeo that makes The Station Agent such a hypnotic watch."[10]
Accolades
References
- ^ McCarthy, Todd (26 January 2003). "'Splendor' top drama in Park City". Variety. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
- ^ a b "The Station Agent (2003)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
- ^ "Tom McCarthy's The Station Agent - Filmmaker Magazine - Fall 2003". filmmakermagazine.com. Retrieved 2022-03-17.
- ^ "The Station Agent (2003)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
- CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
- ^ Mitchell, Elvis (3 October 2003). "A Train Depot, More Dream Than Destination". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (17 October 2003). "The Station Agent". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
- ISSN 1932-8672. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
- ^ Travers, Peter (September 25, 2003). "The Station Agent". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on May 29, 2008.
- ^ Christopher, James (March 25, 2004). "The Station Agent". The Times. Archived from the original on June 16, 2011.