Strangers at a Train Depot

The Station Agent tells the story of a lonely, friendless dwarf who moves into a deserted train depot in rural New Jersey. While there, he meets a divorcée who has lost her only son and a hot dog vendor who may soon lose his ailing father--both very lonely people. Before you hastily decide not to see this film, I should add that it won both the Audience Award and Screenwriting Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival. First-time director Tom McCarthy handles these themes with such finesse that human comedy survives amidst the pathos.

Star Peter Dinklage turns in a wonderful performance as Finbar McBride, a dwarf from Hoboken who has come to spend much of his adult life behind a stoic scowl, a measured voice, and a burning cigarette. He repairs model trains for a living and his small community of acquaintances consists of fellow enthusiasts who share his love of railways perhaps because they have nothing better to do. His daily life, we learn, is continually punctuated by reactions to his diminutive stature. Strangers take pause. Children taunt him. Young women laughingly tell their boyfriends not to stare. And all the while, he patiently endures with cigarette planted firmly in hand.

The sudden death of an acquaintance, presumably closer than the rest, leaves him in possession of a train depot in which he hopes to find sanctuary from his previous existence of snickers and stares. Because this is a dramatic comedy, we know his quest for solitude will not be successful and on his first day there, McCarthy introduces to us two characters that most people would be happy to meet and befriend. But not Finbar McBride.

The field in front of his home happens to be the daytime location of Gorgeous Frank's, a mobile hot dog stand. With old Frank increasingly ill, his talkative son Joe (Bobby Cannavale) has returned from Manhattan in order to care for both father and business. Why anyone would set up shop in a remote field instead of downtown is beyond me, but within minutes of opening, a customer arrives. Her name is Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) and as the film's recently bereaved divorcée, we sense it is some sort of personal triumph for her to have woken up this morning and gone to get coffee.

Without explanation, Joe and Olivia immediately take to glum, laconic Fin. Joe cheerfully invites him out for a beer, for a talk, for a walk, for anything, but Fin always declines. "C'mon," Joe sighs, "there aren't enough cool people round here." Olivia, meanwhile, shows up at Fin's door with a bottle of bourbon. She surveys his sparse furnishings and asks whether he owns any cups. "I have mugs," he replies and the scene develops beautifully as Fin accommodates the eccentricities of a person who seems even lonelier than him.

Perhaps because he seems so much the outsider, these strangers open up to him, allowing him a glimpse into lives he might otherwise never know. While watching this film, I wondered why these moments of confession, unlike others, tend to sound stilted or scripted. They often begin portentously: "My son died two years ago" or "I'm pregnant ... I haven't told anyone yet." Far from being a weakness, I now believe McCarthy has sought to capture the awkward delicacy with which we finally voice pains that have long been held close.

The film is also a delightful comedy about Fin's reawakening to the world. When we first meet Fin, Dinklage subtly evokes the injured yearning and kindness that has inspired his character's search for solitude. Even when he tries to wall out the world, Fin always seems worthy of the warmth and trust that Joe and Olivia invest in him as their companion. In the end, they make him responsive to such overtures as love and friendship. Although overcoming isolation is a story we have seen on film countless times before, The Station Agent provides us with genuine gratification while watching someone as deserving as Fin realize, with both caution and humor, that there is much more to life than trains.