Wednesday Review: The Girl on the Train

The Girl on The Train is based on a best-selling book. I get the distinct impression it should have stayed in that format. This is not a story that’s cinematic at all. We have dialogue, we have internal monologue, and we have lots of flashbacks. We also have a set of characters who, aside from the man played by Luke Evans, I pretty much hate.

I’d be lying if I said this story didn’t have depth or complex characters. However, they’re complex horrible people with multiple layers to their dysfunction. I’m not entirely sure that Evans didn’t feel like a breath of fresh air because it’s impossible to not like Luke Evans, but it was something of a relief when he came into the story, albeit briefly, as a basically good person caught up in the web of bullshit surrounding all the other characters in this movie.

Our main character, Rachel, is an alcoholic who rides a train every day to avoid telling her roommate that she’s unemployed. Every day, she rides past her ex-husband and his new wife, as well as some neighbors who she fantasizes about. She imagines the woman and man she sees through the train window to have the perfect, happy life she’ll never get to enjoy.

Then, disaster! Rachel realizes that this complete stranger is having an affair, ruining her vicarious life. In a drunken stupor she gets off the train, chases the woman down, and blacks out. When she wakes up, she’s covered in blood, and learns the woman is missing. The remainder of the movie is driven by the question of what happened during the period of time she can’t remember.

Running through the characters: Our main character is, once again, and alcoholic who we learn regularly harasses her ex-husband and his new wife, and has even entered their home simply because the door was unlocked. The ex-husband seems disturbingly indifferent to the problems of either his current or former wife. The fantasy girl is having an affair, despite being with a man who we learn has never been anything but dutiful to her. And before the film is over even the new wife is revealed to be an utter piece of human garbage, but to give the details of that way would be to spoil the story.

And the film wants us to feel sympathy for each of these people. Sure, in a book it might work, where we get to go directly inside their heads and understand how their dysfunctions developed. Here, however, we have their actions and the occasional internal monologue from our protagonist. That doesn’t inspire sympathy in me.

Putting that side, this is a murder mystery with little in the way of action or clues. Eventually, the truth just...kind of falls into place, and we get a brief climax. There’s no threats from the killer, or chase scenes. Just a quick scuffle and it’s over. You could argue the character’s grow, but it’s questionable if the events of the film even had anything to do with that, or if they were simply at the breaking point emotionally when something had to give.

Skip this movie. I haven’t even read the book, and I’m still recommending it over the movie.