Hollywood ending?

At the end, when Olivia, Joe and Fin are drinking on her porch, there's a hint that Fin might hook up with the librarian girl. Those two had a sweet exchange at his place, and he attempted to intervene when the bullying boyfriend (the father of her expected child?) was being mean to her. Did you think the two of them as a couple seemed plausible? I didn't feel any spark from Fin for her until at the very end. Was that line about their hooking up sort of contrived? I felt the movie had a satisfactory ending with the three friends reconciling. I'm not sure that the hint of romance added much to it. What did you think?

Take a look

(from Kim)

What was your reaction to Fin's climbing on the bar and shouting "Take a look"? I had the sense that the hurt feelings from earlier that day and the copious alcohol played the major role in the outburst, but also the hurt feelings from a lifetime. And the scene, I thought, was well done (the camera work — the crowd, the dizzying feeling); it gave a good sense of how all these factors were roiling together to produce an emotional tornado. And it was a situation where he wasn't overtly under attack, where the "provocation" didn't necessarily merit the response; but one more subtle, where he could "feel" all these sidelong glances and whispers, some real, some imagined, not just from the bar that night, but from everywhere his whole life, and he was so desperate for it to STOP.

What did you think?

Olivia

Patricia Clarkson's character, Olivia, was quite brilliant, even if rather cliche on the surface: the zany, absent-minded artist who runs the same person off the road twice (i.e., doesn't learn from her mistakes, at least not right away), who dislikes cell phones and comforming to social expectations. She's something of a type, but then there are surprises: the profound grief of losing a child, the bitterness of a separation, the giving up on life. She's sunny and dark at the same time. Zany and solemn. And beautiful and ugly — the ugliness referring to the way she treats Fin when he is trying to help her. Did that seem in character to you? I was taken aback by her bahavior, but then it quickly made more sense to me. When she harshly said, "I'm not your mother, and I'm not your girlfriend," she was asserting her own identity rather than trying to run Fin off, like saying I have stood in that relation to people all of my life, and now I'm just me. I'm just me in my own right. And Fin understands that. His loneliness and his own struggles to find a comfortable place in life have prepared him to understand that and to be an honest-to-God friend to her.

Cleo

I was delighted to see Raven Goodwin, who was so great in "Lovely and Amazing." Cleo was an interesting character to me because we never really know who she is -- other than that she likes trains -- or who her parents are or where she comes from. Any thoughts on Cleo's role in the film?

Isolation

What do you think this film has to say about loneliness and isolation? The three main characters are each alone: Fin because he has withdrawn from the cruelty and constant spectacle of being a dwarf, Olivia because of her persistent grief, and Joe because of his overbearing good humor and neediness. This may be the only thing they have in common, but they forge a very touching friendship.

Dwarfism

I have heard people with dwarfism on television talk about the way they are treated in society -- that people stare, point at them, pat their heads, make fun, etc. Even so, it was surprising to me to see Fin treated as such an oddity. I assume this was partially because he was in such a remote area of New Jersey, but really, have these people never seen a dwarf before? The woman who took his picture in the convenience store? Fin's reaction was priceless.

Characters

I was very impressed with the characters in this movie. We get a sense very early on of who these people are and what makes them tick. Very little actually happens in "The Station Agent," but I found it fascinating to watch the characters interact and their relationships develop. Did you have a favorite character?

Erin's pick: "The Station Agent"

I was not feeling inspired this go-round, and I had some trouble making a pick. I came across "The Station Agent," though, and it really grabbed me. Sounds like a nice, character-driven story. And it features the remarkable Patricia Clarkson.