Fin lives a deliberately unassuming life, worn down with the constant stares and comments he attracts as a 4 and a half foot dwarf. He has a passion for trains, and works quietly in a model train shop until events lead him to take residence in a rickety depot, the long disused home of an old-time station agent, in the little town of Newfoundland, New Jersey. Emotionally defensive and prepared for a solitary life, the intrusion of the boisterous, vibrant Joe and wounded, grieving Olivia into his life make things take a rather unexpected turn.

Peter Dinklage is an extraordinary presence in this film, mostly through the medium of one of the most impressively expressive and mobile faces I've ever seen on an actor. Taciturn Fin, leading a life where he feels the best he can hope for is to be ignored, communicates largely through his huge and bottomless blue eyes. So many of the belly laughs and edge-of-tears moments hinge on a raised eyebrow, or wide-eyed confusion. His soft, low, voice is almost never raised and hardly varies, and yet so much authority is packed into it, that Dinklage's Fin effortlessly takes centre stage not because of his dwarfism but because of the force of his enigmatic steel-cored character. Accolades should be heaped upon his head for this restrained and beautiful performance, and also upon those who support him.

The real star for me, however, was the unsentimental, realistic and gripping writing. There are no great shocks or surprises in terms of plot, but the human way in which the film is written makes everything shocking and surprising, just as life is even when we know exactly what will happen next. This is combined with pacy and smooth direction, cutting between the slow-moving gentleness of life in quiet Newfoundland and the racing exhilaration of the trains pounding inexorably along their tracks. The trains are as much stars of the film as the actors, as all the characters find themselves drawn to Fin's passion in a different way, taking some part of his quietly enthralled interest with them as they go. The trains have a hefty symbolic role, as they increase in size and pace as Fin's ability to open himself to life increases... as he lies in bed, disturbed and hopeful, the trains' shuddering and blinking lights seem to herald something new in his life, both metaphorically and, in one case, literally.

Although there is obviously a theme about prejudice and ignorance running through the film, the subtly structured plot allows us to see, without preaching, that everyone suffers from some form or another of underestimation or intolerance. There is casual, ignorant cruelty (such as the reaction to Fin in the local convenience store) and there is the more deilberate, focused kind, but it is not all, by any means, directed at Fin, and he too discovers that there are misconceptions of his own to deal with. It sounds so poor to say that this is a film about learning to live, and it sounds so twee and predictable to suggest that it is about getting to the root of yourself. But it is about all these things, and about friendship and love and bitterness and anger and potential. And all of this is neatly concealed in a short, sweet, package that amounts to a film which I felt was a book (or perhaps a novella) that I would desperately enjoy reading.