The Girl on the Train review: a flawed, derailed drama

The Girl on the Train looks to tap into the same audience fanbase that thrilled to Gone Girl. There certainly are similar themes of the secrets and devious actions of pretty people. But while Gone Girl had a killer twist and an impassioned Oscar nominated performance by Rosamund Pike, The Girl on the Train comes up short. It feels less like hopping onboard a train and more climbing onto the bandwagon of dozens of Lifetime movies.  

Emily Blunt (Sicario) stars as Rachel, a broken down drunk still struggling to cope with her divorce.  While downing a couple of bottles a day doesn’t make the pain go away, it helps her to forget … temporarily.

That solution frequently tends to go sideways as Rachel does some light stalking on her ex, Tom (Justin Theroux), and his new wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation). Anna was able to provide the child Rachel couldn’t so she faces crippling inadequacy issues.

Rachel has slowly developed a new obsession with Megan (Haley Bennett, The Magnificent Seven), a woman she spots on her balcony while on the train. In Megan, Rachel imagines a free-spirited life full of possibilities and passion.

When Megan turns up missing, Rachel finds herself drawn to the investigation with suspects ranging from Megan’s therapist (Edgar Ramirez, Hands of Stone) to her overly controlling husband Scott (Luke Evans, Fast & Furious 6).

Blunt is a quality actress and she delivers strongly as a woman with nothing left to lose, but she can only do so much with the material.

Erin Cressida Wilson, who adapts Paula Hawkins’ novel, never manages to create that compelling reason why Rachel is so invested in Megan’s disappearance. Rachel constantly comes across as deeply disturbed. Not in a rooting for her kind of way, but an ‘everyone should be freaked out about her’ manner. The greater problem is none of the leads are likable enough to really get invested in their problems anyway.

To make up for his characters’ personality flaws, Director Tate Taylor goes for a dizzying and confusing narrative structure with hard to follow flashbacks. There’s a sense that Taylor gets the characters aren’t likable and has to use more gimmicky storytelling to compensate. Danny Elfman’s strong score proves invaluable in setting up the dark tone.

We’re in a movie era where dramas like to throw in last minute twists with shocking revelations. It feels like a huge cheat to have the blackout drunk serving as the narrator. That’s probably the least reliable person to count on to provide trustworthy testimony.

And not surprisingly, there’s some key information Rachel can’t recall that blows the mystery wide open. But it’s hard to find it particularly shocking since the entire film is based on her faulty memory.

Gone Girl benefitted immensely from Gillian Flynn adapting her own novel. That luxury allowed Gone Girl to have a certain authenticity that Girl on the Train lacks. The twists were well executed and smart. Here, the major revelations feel way too simple and genuine insight into the characters was shortchanged.

Once the culprit has been outed, the film veers to cartoon drama land with a character acting ridiculously silly simply to give the film a ‘villain.’

The Girl on the Train is one of those films desperately in need of a better hook than terrible people doing awful things. This is an underdeveloped drama that’s not worth your time.

Rating: 3 out of 10

Photo Credit: Barry Wetcher/STORYTELLER DISTRIBUTION CO., LLC