【1994 Archives】

994 Archivesunreliable narrator can be a tricky story device.

Done right, and the results can be thrilling, as evidenced two years ago by Gone Girl. Done wrong and you get The Girl on the Train, a well-acted but nonetheless glum and ridiculous adaptation of Paula Hawkins' bestselling novel.

Hawkins has railed against the media's frequent comparisons between the two books, but it's hard to shake the feeling that this is Gone Girllite.

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Emily Blunt stars as Rachel Watson, an alcoholic, divorced voyeur who finds herself to drawn to a mysterious blonde woman she sees through the window of a train during her daily "commute" through the suburbs of New York (not London, as in the book). "She's everything I want to be," we learn via Rachel's monotonous voice-over that does a good job of conveying her self-loathing despite being over-written.

The blonde woman is Megan (Haley Bennett), whose life with picture-perfect hubby Scott (Luke Evans) looks wonderful on the outside, but the truth is that she and Scott only found each other because "we were the saddest people we knew." Clearly, playing wifey in the suburbs isn't everything she imagined it would be.

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Megan fancies herself a gallerist, but she's currently employed as a nanny by (coincidental?) lookalike Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) and Tom (Justin Theroux), who just so happens to be Rachel's cheating ex-husband. Tired of taking care of someone else's baby and reluctant to become another sanitized Stepford wife, Megan yearns to start her life over again. Unfortunately, she doesn't get the chance, as she's brutally murdered in the woods.

Thus begins our mediocre mystery ... which anyone who has ever watched an episode of Law & Orderor read a James Patterson book should be able to figure out before the big, dramatic anti-reveal in the third act.

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The Girl on the Trainworks overtime convincing you to care about these people and their rather petty problems, but none of it works -- mainly because as good as Blunt is in the role, her character is a blackout drunk who is no fun to be around. See, Rachel isn't a sorority girl who had one too many jello shots, she's Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. Megan may be the murder victim, but it's Rachel who looks dead behind the eyes.

Desperate to remember the time she has lost during these boozy episodes, Rachel sets out on an amateur investigation that sees her become a patient of Megan's hunky therapist (Edgar Ramirez), with whom she may or may not have been having an affair. At the same time, the police (led by Allison Janney) conduct their own investigation, with Rachel among the red-herrings, er, suspects.

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Blunt is at her best when Rachel is either filled with rage (i.e. during a bathroom monologue early in the film) or regret, as she is when she attends an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, practically begging for help with her drinking problem. But the rest of her bleary-eyed, red-faced trainwreck act feels a little phony. Either way, it's uncomfortable to spend time with her mess of a character, unlike Amazing Amy in Gone Girl.

Speaking of which, not only are such comparisons completely justified, but they don't bode well for The Girl on the Train, which looks like a pale rip-off next to David Fincher's creepy crime movie. The campy climax even goes for the same Grand Guignol glamour of Gone Girl, but the lurid moment isn't half as compelling. It's hard to discuss without spoilers, but suffice to say, this is a hot slice of tawdry trash, not the kind of elevated thriller that will inspire hundreds of hot takes the way Gone Girldid.

Trainis more of a cheesy airport thriller that thinks it's much smarter than it is. We'll save space for it next to The Da Vinci Codeon the shelf of bestselling books that made for middling movies.

Train is more of a cheesy airport thriller that thinks it's much smarter than it is. We'll save space for it next to The Da Vinci Code

The problem with this adaptation comes down to the fact that director Tate Taylor is ultimately out of his element and beyond his depth here. Given the structure of the story and the multiple perspectives it indulges, the timeline of events is difficult to follow, though it barely matters, since you know the final reel will be wrapped up in a nice little bow to clear up any confusion.

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That's because this is a contrived mystery with only a handful of suspects, only one of whom really makes sense. You'll spend most of the running time trying to figure out the identity of Megan's killer, only to shrug once its revealed, since it's just as you (probably) suspected. Opportunity exists for the movie to veer from the novel and deliver a daring twist, but that notion is quickly dismissed, and it becomes obvious what is really going on.

It turns out that the only thing this unreliable narrator can be counted on for is to cheat the audience. This is a mystery that isn't earned -- less a "whodunnit?" and more of a "who cares?"