Wednesday, 7 July 2004
The Station Agent
There's something appropriate about watching a film starring a dwarf as an in-flight movie. The cramped seating and inhospitable conditions seem designed to make just about anyone, of any size, feel uncomfortable and out of place. And if those are only temporary conditions, can you imagine how someone who's outsized by life might feel?
Pretty normal, actually.
Bet you didn't see that coming, eh? It's rather inappropriate, socially speaking, to compare a temporary discomfort - albeit for the duration of a trans-Atlantic flight - and an actual body shape. And yet it's entirely appropriate for writing purposes, drawing a metaphor out of what a brief movie has to offer.
That's pretty much the point of The Station Agent. Being different is pretty much the same for everyone, if you'll forgive that strained logic. Finbar McBride, and presumably Peter Dinklage who plays him, has come to terms with the way he is. It's everyone else who has a problem - and that, in turn, creates problems for him. So nothing is really resolved. (Q.E.D.)
Not that this is a deep-thinking film. On the contrary, it's got a very smooth flow - a good feeling, if not a feel-good film. People hurt, people die, people move one, people live. Watching it all go past, like train-watching, is sort of soothing and yet a bit uncomfortable. It's not like you'll get some big bonus at the end, having sat through the film - the watching is its own reward.
And the ensemble - Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale and the aforementioned Dinklage - make it rewarding indeed. Backed up by the cutie Michelle Williams and the refreshingly non-precocious Raven Goodwin, these three give a performance worth sticking around for. Even for audiences not trapped in a plane seat, this is a film that deserves attention without commanding it.
4 / 5 - no big revelations, but then life isn't like that; the normalcy of these three people's lives is what makes them worth watching