Station Agent

It's a rare and wondrous thing to be surprised at the cinema these days. Where are the truly original characters? Where are the story lines that lay legitimate claim to that ubiquitous and inflated adjective "quirky"? Where is the astonishment?

Right now, it's in "The Station Agent," a wise, funny, affecting little movie that delighted audiences at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is just now making its way to theaters. It was written and directed by an actor named Tom McCarthy, who made it as a vehicle for a bunch of his friends, whom most viewers probably will not have heard of. It's the kind of film that exists outside of genre or one-line descriptions. Its twists and turns are so subtle and unexpected that easy synopsis would be unfair. The best advice to filmgoers who appreciate smart, mature, humanist movies is, simply, Go. That, and Tell Your Friends.

Peter Dinklage stars as Finbar McBride, a train buff who is happily working in lonely quietude at a model-train store as the movie opens. When the death of a friend results in Fin inheriting a tiny train depot in rural New Jersey, the quiet, vaguely misanthropic young man sets off for a new life, presumably of quiet misanthropy in rural New Jersey.

Instead, Fin discovers that he has neighbors, whose lives have a persistent way of intersecting with his. Joe (Bobby Cannavale), a hot dog vendor who parks his truck in front of Fin's depot every morning, is determined that he and Fin will be best friends; Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), a clumsy, preoccupied painter, almost runs the newcomer over -- twice -- and arrives on his doorstep apologetically bearing a bottle of bourbon. As this oddball threesome coalesces into something akin to a friendship, it's never clear whether Fin will entirely break through his carapace of hurt and mistrust, or whether he will retreat into his hermetic world of train schedule, pocket watch and comfortable, lonely silence.

It should be noted that Fin comes by his isolation honestly: He happens to be a dwarf, measuring 41/2 feet tall, and early in the movie the audience is shown the indignities that he suffers every day. Children make cruel jokes about Snow White as he walks by; a salesgirl doesn't see him over the cash register; the manager of a convenience store takes his picture while he's buying toilet paper. Fin, a handsome man with searching eyes and a sensuous, bow-shaped mouth, has learned over a lifetime that people will see him as exotic, even though, he explains, he's actually "just a simple, boring person."

McCarthy achieves a wonderful balance whereby Fin's height is simultaneously taken for granted and yet always at the problematic center of things. He's helped enormously by a strong, unsentimental performance by Dinklage, whose soft baritone and dark-eyed glower are both forbidding and seductive. Clarkson and Cannavale deliver equally accomplished performances as Fin's ragtag clique: Clarkson, with her porcelain delicacy and tinkling, musical voice, is at once heartbreaking and sharply funny, and Cannavale, who serves as the comic relief, also manages to serve as the movie's big, open-hearted moral catalyst. (Raven Goodwin, the Prince George's County native who was so lovely and amazing in "Lovely & Amazing," and Michelle Williams, from "Dawson's Creek," round out a terrific ensemble cast.)

With Clarkson and Dinklage, McCarthy has cast two of the contemporary screen's great faces, and he films them accordingly. His cinematographer used grainy 16mm film to photograph "The Station Agent," which results in a gauzy, unfocused look that fits the movie's gentle tone (in certain still, nighttime moments, Clarkson looks as if she's been painted by Gerhard Richter).

As a testament to vagrant, evanescent human connection, "The Station Agent" conveys a melancholy sort of joy that is rarely seen in conventional movies these days. Indeed, its emotions are probably too complicated for the nuance-free conventions of the major motion picture. In the cinema, as in all things, we can thank heaven for small miracles.