The Station Agent

The Station Agent is a 2003 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Tom McCarthy in his directorial debut. It stars Peter Dinklage as a man who seeks solitude in an abandoned train station in the Newfoundland section of Jefferson Township, New Jersey. It also stars Patricia Clarkson, Michelle Williams, Bobby Cannavale and John Slattery. For his writing achievement, McCarthy won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. The film itself also won the John Cassavetes Award. 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. Cuban American Joe Oramas operates his father's roadside snack truck while the elder man recovers from an illness, and artist Olivia Harris is trying to cope with the sudden death of her young son two years earlier and its ramifications on her marriage to David, from whom she is separated. Olivia's initial and second meetings with Fin involve her dangerously distracted driving. Cleo is a young girl who shares Fin's interest in trains and wants him to lecture her class about them. Emily, the local librarian, is a young woman dismayed to discover she is pregnant by her ne'er-do-well boyfriend. 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 depression and disappears. Emily seeks solace in Fin, who is realizing human interaction may not be wholly unpleasant. When Fin tries to protect Emily from her boyfriend at a bar he pushes Fin aside, causing Fin to lapse back into his asocial behaviour.