Review 389: The Girl on the Train

In all my years on reviewing movies, few of them have been this melodramatic, depressing, disturbing and unpleasant. The Girl on the Train is that rare film.

Based on the novel, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) is an alcoholic woman who is suffering the aftermarth of her divorce with her husband Tom (Justin Theroux) after she caught him cheating on her with a woman named Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), takes the train work daily. She fantasizes about the relationship of her neighbours Scott (Luke Evans) and Megan Hipewell (Hayley Bennet), during her commute. She imagines them as this seemingly perfect couple, but little does she know that Megan is deeply unhappy with her marriage. Everything changes for Rachel when she sees something from the window and Megan is missing, presumed dead.

Part of the beauty of the original book as well as it's biggest challenge in translating it into a screenplay was that a lot of what happens takes place inside the characters heads, we delved deep into the minds of Rachel, Megan and Anna and we got to know them, understand them, learn their motivations and inner demons, the use of the unreliable narrator showed us their POV, how they react to their current lives and what they'd do to get it, but because the book moved at slow build, we grew to sympathies and understand them as characters and their motivations.
Instead of that, we have beautiful actresses stuck in one dimensional stereotypical roles who come across as e three female leads come across as smarmy and unlikeable as a result.

The screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson the books plot is translated to film is sloppy and clumsy and the intrigue of the original Paula Hawkins novel gets lost as a result.

The film never takes its time to flesh out the characters - it tries to at the beginning by flashing back and fourth between the past and present but the editing just comes off as fragmented and frustrating. Then all of a sudden it automatically drops that flashback style as if the director and screenwriter gave up halfway through altogether only to revive it briefly at the climax for the big reveal.

Director Tate Taylor's direction is clumsy and devoid of any suspense or surprise. With this particular film and considering Taylor's previous work (The Help, Get On Up) you get the sense that it's directed by a director who is way out of his depth and he just can't pull off the sense of psychological realism the way directors like Hitchcock, Nolan, De Palma, Aronofsky and Fincher can and the end result is that the films attempts at Psychological storytelling just fall flat on its face. First you don't where it's going and then you don't care where it's going because all the characters save for Emily Blunt's Rachel are all uninteresting cardboard cutouts.

The score by Danny Elfman is appropriately haunting, the cinematography is very hit-and-miss, the way it flashes between the women different perspectives makes the film look sleek and well made at time and ugly at others. The production design is fine - it looks alright but nothing leaps off the screen at you. The make up is well done and the costumes are fine.

As for the acting department, Emily Blunt is the sole bright spot in this otherwise boring and depressing mess of a movie. Rachel Watson is just a complete mess of a human being who can't do anything right. When we first meet Rachel, she's riding the train to work every day and we're led to believe that she works in PR. As the story unravels, we realise that she has a severe drinking problem which is due to her marriage breaking down. She's the most unreliable witness to what turns out to be a crime. Guilt ridden, lonely, desperate and craving love and connection, she's so unstable and confused and has a violent past that she could be a suspect herself. She's a victim of her own idealism; she was going to marry Tom (the perfect husband in her mind), have children and live on the river and it didn't go as planned and she's struggled to accept that. Her portrayal of an alcoholic is excellent and I really got a sense of inner demons and her sense of longing and regret.

Hayley Bennet was ok playing Megan Hipwell I guess. But that's not really saying much when the actress is given so little material to work with other than to play the beautiful ingenue and act depressed and unhappy which ultimately draining the character of any life or personality. Megan is someone who 

Rachel has created this idealised 

As for Anna Watson, Rebecca Ferguson delivers an American accent so dubious that even Michael McIntyre might have questioned it.
Ultimately, she’s relegated to do very little other than to look beautiful and play the role of the obligatory role of the bitter, shrewish, uptight housewife.

As for the role of Rachel's ex Tom Watson, Justin Theroux is given the thankless task of playing the stereotypical, lying, cheating husband. There's not really much else to his character. He just comes off as a sleazehbag. I also never bought his relationship with Emily Blunt, I never believed that they had previously been in a marriage together. He's not even the type of villain you love to hate, he's just despicable.

The usually dependable Luke Evans is sadly wasted as Scott Hipwell, Megan's husband. He is very convincingly intimidating as a controlling husband but is also is able to bring out the humanity and vulnerability when the script can't deliver. 

Edgar Ramirez, Lisa Kudrow, Allison Janney and Orange is the New Black's Laura Prepon round out the cast but I can't really say I was all that impressed with their unremarkable performances.

The Girl on the Train is a plodding, suspense-free film that squanders its bestselling source material, 1.5/5.

The Anonymous Critic.