- Finbar "Fin" McBride (Peter Dinklage) is a little person. Descriptions like that typically are followed by cliche phrases like "with a big heart" or "who is big where it counts," but the truth is that Fin is not terribly friendly, loving, or even likable. He clearly just wants to be left alone to pursue his various train-related hobbies like "walking the right of way," which essentially means walking along train tracks, or "train watching," which is exactly what it sounds like. Now that he's inherited an abandoned train station left to him by his former coworker and only friend (Paul Benjamin), you'd think Fin would have a happy life.
- In truth, Fin's life has probably never been happy. Just walking down the street can be an ordeal when you're a dwarf, and I'm sure he's heard the Snow White jokes hundreds of times. When he tells his chatty new neighbor Joe (Bobby Cannavale) that he doesn't like bars, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out why not. Nonetheless, Fin soon begins to make friends, almost in spite of himself. The amusingly scatterbrained Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) becomes acquainted with Fin after she nearly runs him over with her car (twice). Young Cleo (Raven Goodwin) gets to know Fin because she, too, likes to play out in the old traincar. The librarian Emily (Michelle Williams) finds that she can tell Fin things that she can't even tell her boyfriend.
- What I can't figure out is why anybody would make the extra effort to get to know Fin. True, there are interesting aspects to his personality, but they are buried so deep beneath his aloofness that they don't really seem worth pursuing. In this and many other respects, Thomas McCarthy's The Station Agent is not particularly believable. Fortunately, the acting, especially by Dinklage and Cannavale, the latter of whom is perfect as a man who cannot possibly conceive of what it means to stop talking, is good enough to cover for some of the questionable characterizations. Overall, the film is well-shot and inoffensive, with some slow stretches and a few very interesting moments. It's probably better than sitting around watching trains, if that's the relevant measure.
- Cameos by Richard Kind and John Slattery.
