MOVIES: I'm a good walker, bro.

You know what I like? The Station Agent.

I watched it for the first time on DVD this Saturday, and I now wish I had gone out of my way to see it in the theater (out of my way is usually the only way to see limited release independent films in Ventura County, so close and yet so far from L.A.). I loved it completely.

It stars Peter Dinklage as Fin, a train hobbyist and a dwarf (that's what he calls himself in the film, not my stab at a politically correct term -- I don't have the slightest idea what the P.C. term is these days), who inherits a small train station house in a New Jersey backwater. There he meets the endlessly chatty and charismatic Joe (Bobby Cannavale, in a star-making performance) and the klutzy, emotionally turbulent Olivia (Patricia Clarkson, who was Oscar-nominated for Pieces of April the same year The Station Agent came out, 2003, but could just as easily have been nominated for her work here), who almost runs Fin under the wheels of her SUV, not once but twice, in a side-splittingly hilarious sequence.

Fin is an angry and closed-off man, maybe because he's different, maybe for other reasons; his only love is for trains, and the train station he lives in. He shuns Joe's friendship as best he can, but Joe eventually wears him down with his limitless reservoir of goodwill (when Fin won't let Joe join him on his ritualistic train track walk, Joe insists, "I'm a good walker, bro"). And Olivia soon becomes the third member of this unlikely team, partly through her attraction to Fin, partly through Joe's well-meaning manipulations.

Peter Dinklage (whom Cannavale amusingly refers to in the DVD commentary as "Dink," which seems a tad too close to "dinky," but how can you resist making a nickname out of "Dinklage"?) is the anchor; his character is a thoughtful, deliberate man, and as an actor, he never allows the film to proceed beyond the character's pace. He controls the movie with his performance, and it's an excellent one. In a remarkably short time (short enough for you to lose the urge to say "no pun intended" every time you use the word "short"), you forget there's anything different about Fin -- although he can't let himself forget.

Patricia Clarkson, I'll be honest here, I've been in love with since The Dead Pool. Yes, the last Dirty Harry movie. (Damn, that was 16 years ago. I guess Dirty Harry couldn't survive post-Reagan.) And I've never loved her more than I did in this film. For one thing, the director has allowed her to be sexier here than in any other role I've ever seen her play; she was 42 in this film, but you don't doubt for a second that both Fin (Dinklage was 33) and Joe (Cannavale, 31) could fall for her. (Hell, I did, all over again.) She's a strikingly intelligent and beautiful actress, and I hope her bounty of well-written parts from 2003 carries over into this year and beyond.

And Bobby Cannavale is a genuine discovery. And I'm guessing he's been discovered, judging from the four feature films he's got lined up for release in 2004. He's so effortlessly charming, it's hard to believe he's acting. Even when you fear he's becoming too competitive with Fin for Olivia's affections, you still can't help liking Joe unreservedly. I look forward to seeing Cannavale in whatever his next release may be.

Nothing blows up in this movie. Nobody gets shot. The only death is from natural causes. It's a slow, quiet film, but it's got a wonderful sense of humor that grows as the characters develop (the first time Fin allows himself to make a joke, you laugh half from the humor, and half from the release of tension), and the small town setting is gorgeous. The four main characters are all people you'd like to get to know better (that's including Michelle Williams of Dawson's Creek as the town librarian, who has a relatively minor but pivotal role), and when the film ended, I wished I could spend more time with them.

It's the small things in this film that will win you over. I'll let you decide whether the pun is intended or not.