For Christmas, a friend of mine got me the DVD of The Station Agent. She said it reminded her of me. I didn’t really know how.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a lonely man named Fin who loves trains. He’s quiet, reserved, and also a dwarf. He works in a model train shop in New Jersey with what appears to be his only friend. When his friend passes away suddenly, he leaves Fin an abandoned train station in the middle of New Jersey.
So, this reminds you of me, huh?
To be fair, I loved The Station Agent when I saw it in the theater and it’s Peter Dinklage’s breakout role. I hadn’t seen it since then, though, I just remembered really liking it. It was the first time I had ever seen Bobby Cannavale in anything and he’s great as Joe, an almost puppy-like character who wants nothing more than to be Fin’s friend. It was also the umpteenth time I had seen Patricia Clarkson in something. The moment where she’s on the couch with her eyes closed and she tells Fin that her son died and says, “Would you mind not looking at me right now?” blew me away.
It’s written and directed by Tom McCarthy who was the future brother in law in Meet the Parents and the unethical journalist in season five of The Wire, two parts that weren’t exactly memorable in my mind but damn do I love his films. He also directed Spotlight, the Academy Award winning movie about The Boston Globe journalists who break the story about the Catholic church’s cover up of abuse. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to watching a movie about Catholic priest pedophiles but it was probably my favorite movie of 2015.
And if you haven’t seen Win Win, do so. It’s about wrestling, which I couldn’t care less about. But McCarthy makes it a compelling story about family with such great performances from Amy Ryan and Alex Shaffer, who was an actual state champion wrestler. It was Shaffer’s first acting role and his inexperience made the performance.
McCarthy also directed The Visitor, which I really want to see, and The Cobbler, which I don’t want to see but probably will anyway.
Anyway, back to The Station Agent. A day after I received it, I popped it in my Blu-ray player. I think it was a Saturday night. I had nothing to do, no one to see. Watching it for only the second time, I remembered why I liked it so much.
I didn’t have the best year last year. I got dumped, had a weird health problem, had a weird work situation. I felt isolated and more often than not the isolation was self-imposed. Friends and family were always on the other end of a phone call or a train ride.
The Station Agent is about people who swear that they want to be left alone but really don’t.
It was a nice gift. And it kind of reminds me of me.
