The Girl on the Train is based on the worldwide best-seller of the same name and it’s too bad the movie version won’t reach the same level of success. Instead of giving us a truly suspenseful thriller, the movie settles for a Gone Girl-esque knockoff type of movie and it decides to be a disorganized mess.
Emily Blunt stars as Rebecca, a recently divorced woman who caught her ex (Justin Theroux) cheating on her with their real estate agent. She became addicted to alcohol during the course of their marriage which makes matters that much worse. Now she takes a train every day and fantasizes about the people’s homes she passes and what their lives are like.
One day while on the train, Rebecca witnesses a woman kissing another man that’s not her husband and she becomes suspicious that something has happened between them. Did they divorce? Or has something even worse occurred? Rebecca isn’t sure, but she begins to probe.
Luke Evans costars as one of the people Rebecca sees daily and she believes that his wife is cheating on him. This gets Evans into a lot of trouble with both the cops and the media and it further stimulates Rebecca’s ever-growing paranoia.
Eventually, the cops do get involved and a female detective (Allison Janney) begins questioning not only Rebecca’s judgment but her sanity due to her penchant for alcohol as well as her mental instability.
For about three-quarters of the movie, I could never really make heads or tails of what was going on, who was doing what to whom or even why. If everything I have just written sounds complicated, just go with it. It’s meant to be just as maddening as the film itself.
Blunt delivers a decent performance, but she’s brought down by a convoluted plot and ludicrous plot twists that make zero sense and by the time we get to the big twist in the finale, it’s too late to care or get involved. Mainly the film tries to be a Lifetime Movie of the Week film that probably should’ve gone to Lifetime instead.
This Train has a journey, but it doesn’t have a successful or satisfying destination.
Grade: C-
(Rated R for violence, sexual content, language and nudity.)
