The Girl On The Train Movie Review (2016)
A psychological thriller about a troubled woman who becomes caught up in a missing-person case after witnessing something from her daily train ride, The Girl on the Train is a well-acted film with a solid mystery, even when the story becomes somewhat tangled.
I read the book The Girl On The Train when it was released in 2015. It is a good read with an unreliable narrator and a story that unfolds well on the page. When this movie was released in 2016, I remember it getting mixed reviews. At the time, I thought I couldn’t quite see how it would translate well to the screen, so I didn’t bother watching it. But time has passed and I got curious.
The Girl On The Train is about Rachel, a divorced alcoholic who rides the train daily, and imagines a perfect life for the one woman in the one house that she looks for every day. During a particular ride, Rachel’s dreams are dashed when she sees the woman on the balcony with a man who is not her husband. Shortly after, this woman disappears, and Rachel becomes involved in sharing what she knows, for better or for worse.
Watching the movie was a satisfying experience, but it left me with a lot of questions about what your impression would be if you had vs. had not read the book. Since I know the book and remember quite a bit, I can’t objectively review it from the other side, but here are my impressions.
The movie presents a curious mystery that takes a long time to play out and centers on three different women. You don’t know how any of them relate to each other, or if they do at all, and the movie does a really nice job of keeping all of the cards with answers to most of the mysterious questions very close to the vest.
There are a number of names in this movie, including Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Allison Janney, and Lisa Kudrow, but Emily Blunt’s performance as Rachel is the standout. Rachel is not a likable character. She is a sloppy drunk most of the time, and Blunt does an amazing job of keeping her just sympathetic enough so that you feel for her.
I understand why this movie got mixed reviews, and I think it has a lot to do with my initial impression that it was an excellent vehicle for a book, and possibly less so for a film. Rachel is an unreliable narrator, and there are many characters in the movie. At a certain point, the film both feels uneven and convoluted. There is a web of storytelling that works its way from the outside to the inside, but, because things can’t be explained quite the same way on screen as they can in print, there are some misses.
That said, The Girl On The Train is entertaining if you like a mystery. It is dark and moody, with a nonlinear layout, and, particularly if you have not read the book, it will all be new to you. See what you think.
Runtime: 112 minutes
Motion Picture Rating: R
Languages Spoken In The Film: English
Should You Watch It? Yes
Did I Cry? Nope
My Rating: 3/5 Stars
Available: Free on Netflix, to rent on Prime Video, or may be available for free on other streaming platforms
