If someone asks, what my favorite movie of all time is, not just in a certain language,
but from all over the world, I wouldn’t know what to say.
There is not one single favorite film, especially for a film lover like me.
But if the same some one puts a gun to my head and asks the same question, without any
hesitation, I would say ‘The Station Agent’.
The Station Agent is a 2003 American film written and directed by Tom McCarthy.
It stars Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson and Bobby Cannavale among very few other characters.
By the way, this video contains major spoilers for this movie, even though that wouldn’t
in any way ruin this movie for you, but just a heads up.
Finn is a quiet man who seeks nothing but a life of solitude.
He doesn’t speak a lot and he is a man with dwarfism.
He loves the trains and the railroads.
He moves to an abandoned train depot that his friend left
him upon his death in Newfoundland, a rural part of New Jersey.
There he meets a chatty snack truck shop owner Joe and Olivia, an artist, along with few
other people in that rural town.
The movie is about these characters just going on about their lives and that is the best
part about it.
Nothing happens in this movie.
When I say nothing, I mean, nothing cinematic, or quite dramatic happens throughout the whole
run time, save for one scene maybe.
We really just watch these characters being themselves.
There are no major conflicts that need to be resolved before the ending.
There are no twist and turns that keeps you guessing.
It is a life that we all live, most of us anyways.
The characters themselves move the story with the tiniest of actions.
Joe being persistent on coming along for the walk with Finn, the kid following Finn on
one of his walks, Olivia offering a gift for almost running Finn over, Finn wanting Joe’s
legs off of the table.
It’s these little moments that make the movie and there are many such moments.
You are not just watching a movie. You are an invisible person in that town.
Every character is etched out so carefully and the script feels complete.
Not a moment of extra shrug, or a wasted scene, but still, the movie flows, organically.
You don’t see the editing, you don’t notice when one scene leads to another.
No drama or a twist is necessary to keep you invested because you are already there.
This is achieved not just through one aspect but everything comes together.
All the performances were brilliant, right down to Harry, Finn’s friend who only comes
for a few minutes, but he lives on.
You really feel the comfort between them as they smoke silently in the dark.
Peter Dinklage was stellar
I do think that this is easily a greater performance than Game of Thrones.
Bobby Cannavale is perfect as a chatty, bored and always excited member of the town and
Patricia Clarkson as always, is great in everything she does.
These are all visible aspects.
But there is one other invisible aspect that elevates this movie to another level.
It is Tom Mccarthy’s direction.
It is restrained and that is the key.
He shows everything, he doesn’t tell.
The movie doesn’t judge its characters.
Even the lady who takes Finn’s picture in the convenience store or the kids who are
making fun of him for his height.
The movie never sides with anyone.
You as an audience might.
But the movie doesn’t.
That’s an important distinction to make
It doesn’t tell you to think or feel anything.
That veil that separates you and the movie is lifted in this case and that is why they
are not just characters in a story, it feels like they are still living in that rural town.
Tom Mccarthy is great at keeping his direction restrained.
All his movies are like that.
I haven’t watched the Cobbler, so I don’t know about that.
But the same kind of story telling is present in his other films like Win Win, The Visitor
and even the most recent, the Oscar winning Spotlight.
Restraint Storytelling in a subject like Spotlight is tricky because it talks about the priests
who molested young children and you clearly know whom to blame.
Yet, if you watch that movie carefully, it doesn’t judge, or it doesn’t ask you to
feel bad for those children or get angry with the priests.
It simply lets the characters interact and make the choices.
Not a lot of directors tell their stories like this.
We can see a glimpse of this kind of storytelling in a few scenes with veteran directors like
Steven Spielberg, but not throughout their movies.
The first scene of the Bridge of Spies is an example of a restrained storytelling.
Denis Villeneuve did this expertly with a particular scene in his movie Sicario.
You already know what scene I’m talking about.
It is the traffic confrontation scene.
That was brutal.
It is a great example of a restrained direction.
That scene could have gone down in so many different ways if he chose to tell us a little bit more
But he doesn’t.
He just watches and so do we and that’s why it has a way greater impact than it would
have had otherwise.
But that spectacular scene kind of backfired when you consider the movie as a whole, because
Sicario never managed to live up to the excellence of that particular scene.
This kind of storytelling is prevalent throughout The Station Agent and I personally feel that
it has one of the best ending scenes in recent times and that is also an example of the kind
of storytelling that I was talking about.
It could end where it ended, or it could also keep going.
Because when I first saw The Station Agent, I felt a little disappointed about the ending.
But after watching the movie, twenty-three extra times, I realized that initially, I
wasn’t disappointed at the ending itself.
I was disappointed with the end of my journey with Finn, Joe & Olivia and that makes it
so much more beautiful.
That’s it for this week’s episode.
Before you leave, I want to ask you a question.
What is your favorite movie of all time, out of all the movies that you’ve watched, irrespective
of the language or the country?
Leave that in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video, like and subscribe to
see more videos like this.
Thank you and see you soon.