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THE
STATION AGENT
7/10
USA
2003 : Tom McCARTHY : 88 mins
When McCarthy's
debut feature won Best Original Screenplay at last month's BAFTAs – beating
Oscar winners Lost
in Translation, Finding
Nemo and The
Barbarian Invasions - the general reaction was "Tom who?"
and "Station what?", as the film hadn't yet been released
over here. But the BAFTA was only the latest in a long line of global
gongs for the movie, the gentle tale of four-foot-something loner Fin
(Peter Dinklage) who moves into a remote rural railway station and is
befriended by a bereaved woman (Patricia Clarkson) and a chatty hot-dog
vendor (Bobby Cannavale).
From its opening
seconds, The Station Agent is emphatically an “American indie”
affair, full of ever-so-plangent guitarwork, a slightly grainy look to
its images, and characters and situations which tread the dangerous line
between originality and quirkiness. Fortunately, McCarthy and his three
lead actors have sufficient grasp on their material (perhaps not surprising,
as they spent three years trying to get the thing made) to ensure the
results are charming without being cloying, intelligent without being
preachy. And Dinklage – who stole the show as the irascible childrens’-book
author in Elf – is a real
find, more than holding his own opposite the ever-reliable Patricia ‘Queen
of the Indies’ Clarkson.
23rd March,
2004
(seen 19th August, 2003 : Kursaal, San Sebastian – San Sebastian
Film Festival)
click here
for the original note-form review of The Station Agent from the
San Sebastian Film Festival
Click
here for the other films and features from the San Sebastian 2003
Film Festival
Click
here for a transcript of an exclusive interview with McCarthy, Dinklage
and Cannavale
by Neil
Young
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