Auden Bui and Mark Cornell’s Train Stop is the story of a chance meeting between two business professionals told through a unique narrative twist. The short film opens at a train station (which oddly looks like the L.A. Convention Center—just me being a jerk), and our two strangers (James Babbin and Sage Porter) casually walk to their respective platforms.
She is focused on catching her train, and he has his head buried in his phone. The two accidentally bump, and their eyes connect. The male stranger says, “I make a ton of money,” and the female response, “I sleep naked.” There is a clear attraction between them, and the two continue making statements and confessions in an almost trance-like state. He then says, “I am hilarious,” and she responds, “I love the NFL.”
“The two accidentally bump, and their eyes connect.”
What appears to be happening in this “conversation” is rather than giving us a beat-around-the-bush flirtatious mating ritual, each one says what the other one wants to hear in a potential mate. Soon it becomes one of those comedic sketches where a character will say something, and then a voice-over will tell what that character is thinking. In this case, the characters just say what they think.
Over the six-minute short, Train Stop takes us through the progressions of a relationship as if presenting it from the perspective of the other gender. Train Stop moves through the couple’s story in a straightforward manner and is wonderfully performed by leads Babin and Porter. This experiment in storytelling not only highlights the differences between the sexes but does so in a unique and insightful way.
"…takes us through the progressions of a relationship as if presenting it from the perspective of the other gender."
