One taxi driver’s shift is all it takes to consider our lives on Earth and among the stars in Daniel V. Masciari’s out of this world Stationed At Home.
Director: Daniel V. Masciari
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Run Time: 120′
Glasgow Film Festival Screening: March 7, 2025
U.S. Release Date: TBA
U.K. Release Date: TBA
It would be wrong to say Stationed At Home is a film about the International Space Station, but what the satellite represents is everything to Ralph (Erik Bjarnar), whom we follow as he drives his cab around Binghamton, New York, on Christmas Eve. The ISS is due to pass overhead at 5:47am the following morning just after he clocks off work. It is 1998 and the newly launched space station feels like a miracle.
Ralph drives a sparse corner of town, hardly encountering anyone but his fares. He takes Harry (Darryle Johnson) to a bar, Elaine (Eliza VanCourt) to a hotel, Stan (Eric Kincaid Endres) to the airport. Ralph wins on a scratch card and treats Harry to a hearty dinner; Harry meets a volatile customer with multiple IDs who might be a serial killer. Over the evening, things happen, but it’s that they all happen beneath the same clear, starry night sky that creates a sense of significance, no matter how small the detail.
What’s immediately clear from Daniel V. Masciari’s debut feature is how skilled he is at crafting immersive atmospheres. Stationed At Home is incredibly comforting. It begins at 8pm with a smooth-talking jazz DJ on the radio, and from there the layer upon layer of aural delights weave a soothing blanket. The sounds of distant trains and clacking of Elaine’s typewriter would fit seamlessly into any accomplished ASMR channel. As Harry pootles around in his ramshackle ‘Galaxy Cab’, it brings to mind the feeling of being driven home at night as a child, a uniquely soothing experience. That the film is in black and white only adds to this sense of a long-forgotten peace.
More touchingly, Stationed At Home takes place beneath and among the cosmos. Ralph and everyone he meets feel wonderfully, infinitely small in the grand scheme of things, but in ways that give them all individual significance. Although Ralph’s cab is kitted out with NASA memorabilia and rockets, it’s a reminder to ‘always look up’ from his mum that is the basis of his ISS fixation. In an endless universe, the most wonderful thing is the people we spend our short time with. Harry’s friendship with George (Peter Foster Morris), who he meets after Ralph drops him off, consists of bar-hopping and arguing over whether the moon landing really happened, but on this quiet night, in this quiet film, that they have each other for company is more than friendship, it is spiritual comfort.
Stationed At Home shares its weird sensibilities with another 2025 Glasgow Film Festival offering, Boys Go To Jupiter, which similarly uses absurdity to get to the heart of something real. When the radio DJ, describing the ISS’s orbit, says, ‘just as someone says there it goes, someone else will say here it comes’, it also recalls the casual profundity of the Welcome to Night Vale podcast. The film has the makings of an alternative Christmas classic, one less about the pomp of the season and more about its strangeness. People are still out working, still having adventures, still ending up in places they ought not to be (Ralph inexplicably ends up in a strip club with Harry, maybe the least festive place there is). Not feeling very Love Actually? You might be feeling Stationed At Home.
The night spent with Ralph in Stationed At Home lingers in the mind; in the way lives interact if only for a car journey, and how dates, times, and moments take on deep personal meaning. It’s at once about the vastness of the universe and also extremely cosy. It’s the easiest thing in the world to love Stationed At Home.
Stationed at Home: Movie Plot & Recap
Synopsis:
Synopsis: A taxi driver looks forward to the International Space Station passing overhead, but not before a late-night Christmas Eve shift where his life intersects with an assortment of colourful characters.
Pros:
- A heck of a vibe: soporific, nostalgic, cosy.
- A memorable watch thanks to its colourful characters.
- Deceptively profound, finding great meaning in little interactions.
Cons:
- The disjointed plot might leave some viewers cold.
- Some characters are more fleshed out than others.
Stationed at Home will have its World Premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival on March 7, 2025. Read our Glasgow Film Festival reviews and our list of films to watch at the 2025 Glasgow Film Festival!
