The Girl on the Train Review

The+Girl+on+the+Train+Review

The Girl on the Train is a film directed by Tate Taylor and is based on the popular best-selling book of the same name by Paula Hawkins. This movie stars Emily Blunt as a demoralized divorcee named Rachel, who has a massive alcohol problem. Her daily routine involves riding a train to New York City for work, and during these rides, the train passes her old neighborhood. One house in her former neighborhood is home to what Rachel thinks is a perfect couple. Every time she sees them, she always pictures how perfectly they spend their time together, and how they treat each other. But one morning, she sees a very grim situation at that same house that surprises her. Throughout the film, she tries to investigate what happened on that day, but unbeknownst to her, all of this investigating she does has the potential to take her down a very dangerous course that might endanger her and others.

Everything from the actors, to the marketing has gotten people thoroughly interested in seeing this movie, and I happened to be one of those people. When I sat down the theater, I was hoping that this film would be a slightly mediocre version of David Fincher’s Gone Girl. However, what I received was a dull and lifeless Lifetime channel styled version of Gone Girl. The dialogue felt like something from a Stephanie Meyer book, and pacing that’s about as long as the average curling event at the Olympics.

This film could have sunk into the underwater trenches of mediocrity, but there were some things that keep this film afloat. For starters, one of the assets of the film is the acting of some of the cast members. Emily Blunt effectively portrays an out of control, crazy woman who is often in a drunken stupor. Others. including Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett and Luke Evans were good, but Allison Janney who plays a detective, destroys the competition completely.

Unfortunately, where the film really fails is in its narrative and pacing. The film heavily relies on its setting up hints for this “convoluted whodunit mystery” by constantly showing a series of flashbacks. The flashbacks go on for a lengthy amount of time, but they keep coming up and become needlessly repetitive. What the film tries to do is bring in different points of view to the story, but the problem is that most of the characters weren’t developed enough to provide their own version of the mystery.

The dialogue is beyond banal. At points, especially in the beginning the dialogue might be good somewhat, but as the film progresses, the dialogue becomes as horrid as E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey.

There isn’t a duller film I have seen in recent memory than The Girl on the Train. Sure the performances might be a redeeming factor to the film, but with tiring direction, a simplistic narrative, run-of-the-mill dialogue, and its absurd climactic twist, The Girl on the Train is more like Gone Girl gone bad.