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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Station Agent, The
Universal acclaim
Based on 38 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 26 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by: Thomas McCarthy
Directed by: Thomas McCarthy
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 3, 2003
DVD: June 15, 2004
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for language and some drug content
Starring Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale, Raven Goodwin, Paul Benjamin, and Michelle Williams
A film about three people with nothing in common, except their shared solitude, until chance circumstances bring their lives together. Before long, from this forgotten depot, this mismatched threesome forges an unlikely bond, which ultimately reveals that even isolation is better shared. (Miramax)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthie Stein
As touching and original a movie as you're likely to see this year.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Watching this tender little movie with its teasing humor, its deeply felt performances and its focus on slight moments rather than gigantic sea changes is like hearing a tasteful sonata instead of the usual vulgar symphony that the cinema offers up.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
The best advice to filmgoers who appreciate smart, mature, humanist movies is, simply, Go.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
It's hard to say why The Station Agent sends you out feeling so benevolent. It may have something to do with being in the presence of a director who treats you with respect. McCarthy allows us to feel without telling us how and what we should feel.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
It avoids the compulsively calibrated storytelling of big-studio moviemaking for a slower-moving but powerfully absorbing drama.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Ends very abruptly, at a point where you're ready to hang out with it a while. I wanted it to go on and on, but that ending is right. It leaves you the way American movies almost never do: relaxed, receptive, and happy in the moment, not even caring if your train comes in.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge
Wonderfully understated, Station Agent is a masterful film and a bracing movie experience. Its power is in large part because of the performers, most prominently Dinklage as the solitary dwarf.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Its charming story of the delicate intersection of three highly individual lives is the kind of completely personal yet universal film that the festival and the entire independent movement came into being to celebrate. And it does it all in 88 deft and funny minutes.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The movie's writer and director, Tom McCarthy, has such an appreciation for quiet that it occupies the same space as a character in this film, a delicate, thoughtful and often hilarious take on loneliness.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
McCarthy’s film is rich in tone and subtlety, but has precious little dialogue. It feels less like a modern motion picture than some odd poem long lost and then discovered in another age, a timeless, ageless gem of hard-resined emotions melting into real life.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
His height didn't stop independent writer-director Thomas McCarthy from casting his friend in The Station Agent, scoring a triumph for both.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
His height didn't stop independent writer-director Thomas McCarthy from casting his friend in The Station Agent, scoring a triumph for both.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
His height didn't stop independent writer-director Thomas McCarthy from casting his friend in The Station Agent, scoring a triumph for both.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The Station Agent has craft and pace and that far rarer quality, fellow-feeling.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Yes, this is a comedy, but it's also sad, and finally it's simply a story about trying to figure out what you love to do and then trying to figure out how to do it.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
It's the old cliche, but (like most cliches) it's true: It's impossible to imagine this picture without this actor.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
[McCarthy] marries beautifully spare compositions with comically abbreviated dialogue to craft something magnificent from a vaguely precious premise that could easily be the foundation for a parody.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Everyone involved can claim credit, but it's Dinklage, in an understated, outstanding performance, who turns this unlikely tale into art that will strike a chord with any open-minded audience.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
That his (writer-director Tom McCarthy) strange, often funny film is so well-disciplined and deadpan refreshing is an achievement.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Quiet and meditative, Dinklage neatly sidesteps the trope of the angry dwarf, and Clarkson, even in pain and rage, is characteristically warm and sexy -- she's our very own Helen Mirren.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Tim Merrill
Tom McCarthy’s film is never more than small, and that’s how it should be. It is about treasuring life -– sometimes even cheating death -– and it manages to warm hearts in its own uncompromising way, rarely cheating and never belittling.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
McCarthy's characters make for good company even in their story's awkward patches, and in a film so unabashedly about the value of friendship, good company goes a long way.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer
Thanks to the performances and McCarthy's understated script and direction, the film walked off with both the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A droll and affecting debut feature by Tom McCarthy.
Empire Damon Wise
Ultimately this is a film about feelings, moments and things not said. Like "Lost In Translation," it’s about what happens when people living in their own little worlds collide.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Mercifully, The Station Agent is not about how these misfits heal one another -- they're not that miserable, for one thing. It's about the unlikely ways proximity, need, and coincidence create friendships.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Despite its humble nature, the film is downright uplifting without being vulgar, flashy or embarrassing.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt
For most of the film, Fin is only as odd as Joe and Olivia -- three eccentrics rendered positively normal in a friendship built on the crap we all face every day.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
The movie's main attraction isn't hard to find. It's essentially a character study, but one where the nature of the study is as unique as the stature of the character.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
Though the movie is predictable, it's also honest; Fin emerges from his struggles a better person but not A Better Person, if you catch my drift. And in any case all of the actors are a great pleasure to watch.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
The movie, which ends on an unexpected note of wistful humor, also gleans gentle and non-derisive chuckles out of Fin's physical state.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The three actors could not be better. Huge feelings are packed into this small, fragile movie. It's something special.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
A well-acted and crafted character piece that's a bit too calculated and cutesy for its own good.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
The brilliance of Fin is that he reins in a lifetime of rage, and there is a determination in his eye, and in the line of his chin, that practiced moviegoers will, possibly to their surprise, identify as halfway to sexy--the world-weary smolder of the leading man. [6 October 2003, p. 138]
Village Voice Laura Sinagra
Manages to explore the darker facets of friendship without being dark.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
With its quiet pacing and dry-as-a-bone wit, the film strongly recalls the deadpan comedies of Jim Jarmusch or early Hal Hartley, but it gradually reveals a welcome new sensibility, one that's entirely McCarthy's own.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jim Healy
The rural setting and the loners-banding-together theme are affecting and the supporting players--especially Michelle Williams and Raven Goodwin as two more outcasts--are all superb.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
A bit too satisfied with its own sweet sensitivities.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 26 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
jd gave it a1:
Yet another movie whose success depends on flattering the viewer that he's somehow more intelligent and sensitive than most of the bozos on screen -- which isn't terribly hard for the writer to do, since he's written all the parts. Add to that the usual dose of post-ironic quirk, and the ludicrous notion that the lonely offer each other comfort (if that were true, why would anyone be lonely?) and we've got a Sundance award-winner. What would happen if actual artists started working in this medium?
Denis G. gave it a0:
Ending not abrupt enough. Ten minutes was too much of this drivel abt implausible characters going nowhere slowly.
Pekka P. gave it a10:
Ineffably good!
[Anonymous] gave it a9:
Fascinating and beautifully acted and written.
Lawrence B. gave it a 10:
[***PLOT REVELATIONS***] There is nothing I didn't like in the splendid, artful film. Oh, yes, a question or two - maybe even a minor criticism, e.g., why didn't we know, until the dawn, that the onrushing train, when Fin was drunkenly stupified, was a dream? Or, we're all dying to know from where Fin got his money. Or how on earth could Joe or his dad manage to avoid bankruptcy with the income from the food trailer in the middle of nowhere? Nevertheless, the full experience of this movie was so satisfying, funny, alarming, and poignant as to make us cast aside any such trivial inquiries and simply "take it all in" with wonder and pure enjoyment. Indeed, the scripting was so true, the cinematography so crisp and beautiful, the oddly interjected, spare, music so spot on, and the acting so flawless, that it would not be hyperbole to call this a cinema masterpiece.
Jane P. gave it a 10:
Great movie. Touching, funny, and real. It was disturbing to see the cruelty shown by many individuals toward Fin for being physically different. Whether these actions were due to their ignorance or mean-spirit, we could feel Fin's humiliation and isolation. In striking contrast was the genuine kindness and friendship he found in some individuals (who had their own pain to deal with). Definitely hits home on the subject of loss and loneliness. Finally, as the characters discover acceptance and true joy in friendship, the movie, with it's perfect timing, ends. Very satisfying.
Charles M. gave it a 9:
A terrific little movie about the interaction of three people whose paths cross at an abandoned train depot in New Jersey. Peter Dinklage is wonderful, as someone who wants to be left alone, but Bobby Cannavale will have none of that. Patricia Clarkson is very good...Dinklage is excellent and Bobby Cannavale gives a knockout performance.
