Director: Tate Taylor
Starring: Emily Blunt, Haley Bennet, Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Laura Prepon, Lisa Kudrow
Rating: 15
Running Time: 112 Minutes
Release Date: 05/10/16
Based on the novel of the same name by Paula Hawkins, THE GIRL ON THE TRAINÂ stars Emily Blunt as a depressed alcoholic who becomes obsessed with the disappearance of a woman whose life she looked in upon day after day from her train journey to the city.
Whilst comparisons to 2014’s GONE GIRL are inevitable, it must be made clear that though it shares DNA with the aforementioned David Fincher drama, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN is a less focused, less intelligent adaptation of a crime thriller.
Which isn’t to say that it’s without merit. It’s one of those movies that, whilst you’re watching it, you’re perfectly entertained. However, there’s not quite enough to keep you going beyond the cheap, pulpy thrills it lends itself to throughout its runtime.
For a start, it’s predictable. Which I gather not everyone agrees with but I guessed the, shall we say, antagonist well before the eventual reveal. I wasn’t even trying, I wasn’t even bored, It just seemed obvious.
That’s not necessarily a criticism because whilst the film is highly flawed, it’s also a fairly engaging watch.
Emily Blunt is genuinely fantastic as our unhinged and unreliable narrator. She captures the torture of her depression and alcoholism with aplomb and you get a real sense that she’s really trying to keep it together.
Haley Bennet also does well as the mistress of self-reinvention, the woman who goes missing. Like Blunt, she also focuses on the sadness of her character and is nuanced in her portrayal of quiet grief and depression.
With her, Blunt and Ferguson it really allows for the movie to become something of a feminist piece on the modern woman. It’s these three lead women who are the stars here and the way the story unravels to incorporate their empowerment serves as a nice twist on the genre.
Troublingly the film sometimes goes to some nasty places that it isn’t equipped to handle. Its story is quite lumpen and the dynamics and relationships of its characters are a bit muddled to the point where it ruins the tension.
You don’t quite now who we’re meant to be rooting for at the beginning because everyone is sort of awful. Then, towards the end, you do wonder if the there was meant to be more hiding under the surface that just wasn’t shown that well.
This could be down to some bits of rather awkward dialogue and cliched representation which show all men to drink from bottles of beer and all women to hold large glasses of red wine. It is occasionally laughably cliched but despite these flaws being prevalent throughout, I thought technically the movie did a great job.
The cinematography from Charlotte Bruus Christensen is wonderfully unhinged as it really captures the drunken state of mind of the lead. Whilst the editing from Andrew Buckland and Michael McCusker amplifies the out of focused, disjointed wooziness of her attempts to remember the segments of her life she can’t remember.
Danny Elfman’s score is also about low, rumbling beats which, whilst unremarkable, provide a nice backdrop to the unfolding drama.
In the end, THE GIRL ON THE TRAINÂ is a decidedly average thriller that, whilst not terrible, suffers from lumpen dialogue and a predictable story. The performances from the three female leads are exceptional and really display a great message for female empowerment which raises it above mediocrity.
Verdict
