The Station Agent |top|

If you have never visited Newfoundland, New Jersey, and the little red depot by the tracks, you are missing one of the great American films of the 2000s. It is a quiet masterpiece. And in a noisy world, quiet is the loudest thing there is.

"THE STATION AGENT" (2003) is exactly that kind of film. Directed by Thomas McCarthy, it follows Finbar McBride (Peter Dinklage), a withdrawn man who inherits an abandoned train station in rural New Jersey. Expecting solitude, he instead finds two unlikely friends: Joe (Bobby Cannavale), a loud, lonely coffee cart vendor, and Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), an artist grieving a personal tragedy. the station agent

: A comprehensive, historical reference book for those engaged in station work, originally published in 1928 and recently reprinted [37]. If you have never visited Newfoundland, New Jersey,

4.5/5 stars

It is not a film about a dwarf. It is not a film about grief, though grief is its weather. is a film about the human need to be seen without being examined. It argues that you can be antisocial, scarred, and weird, and still deserve a sandwich and a friend. "THE STATION AGENT" (2003) is exactly that kind of film