I was expecting more from this odd little movie about a dwarf named Fin (Peter Dinklage) whose careful life, small in an oddly similar way to his own body, is disrupted when his boss dies and the Hoboken building housing the model train shop in which they work and the apartments in which they live is sold. Fin, not totally stranded, is left a small plot of land on which stand an old train station and a few train cars outside a small town in southern New Jersey.
The Station Agent, which was nominated for and even won a few awards, focuses on Fin and the few relationships he allows others to form with him. Joe (Will & Grace‘s Bobby Cannavale) is in town to run his sick father’s hot dog truck, which seems to be parked on Fin’s land though no explanation is provided for why the insular little man doesn’t kick him, Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) has run away from a tragedy and nearly kills Fin the first time she sets eyes on him, and Emily (Michelle Williams from Dawson’s Creek) is a gorgeous librarian who prefers Fin to her normal body sized but small minded boyfriend.
Now I’ve watched and enjoyed many movies that were driven by the exploration of one or a small group of characters but I honestly don’t understand what the critics saw in Agent that had them writing such overwhelmingly positive reviews. Yes, Dinklage is short and have no doubt that viewers are never allowed to forget it. Whether it’s Emily’s boyfriend and his pal with their foolish namecalling, the stares he attracts from everyone in town, the way a little girl thinks he’s also a child, hardly two minutes go by without this emphasis.
This is the first produced film written by Thomas McCarthy and his first directing effort and, despite the decent performances by all the main actors and reasonable cinematography, I really wonder why this movie was given the green light because there’s just so little tension or growth; the saving grace, I suppose, was the estimated budget of $500,000, so small it was no more than the rounding error on the 2003 Miramax budget.
not recommended
BillSaysThis 