Who doesn’t love a good mystery? And when there’s infidelity involved, it makes it all the better. A good mystery always keeps you guessing. The Girl on the Train is the latest mystery-thriller novel to get the film treatment, and my hopes were high that it could deliver the same jaw dropping feeling I had when I saw 2014’s Gone Girl.
Emily Blunt stars as Rachel, an alcoholic whose ex-husband (Justin Theroux) is now married to his former mistress (Rebecca Ferguson). The two live a happy life with their newborn baby, while Rachel spends her days riding the train to and from New York City in a drunken depression. While peeping from her usual train seat, Rachel becomes entranced with the life of a young woman named Megan (Haley Bennett), who she believes is cheating on her husband (Luke Evans) with her psychiatrist (Edgar Ramirez). When Megan goes missing on the same day Rachel follows her in a drunken stupor, a detective (Allison Janney) begins questioning whether Rachel is responsible for Megan’s sudden disappearance.
Emily Blunt carries the film with a wonderful performance as the pitifully broken lead character. She elicits genuine sorrow for Rachel that makes you never really feel like she’s guilty even when the evidence is stacked against her. Unfortunately, her performance is really the only one that stands out and some performances, like most of the men, seem rigid.
I never read the book, so I can only comment on the structuring of the film. And for the film, it falls a bit flat. Certain clues and instances are often poorly placed making them feel like obvious miscues meant only to distract. As a result, the ending revelation isn’t remotely as surprising as I wanted it to be, or as surprising as it wants to be. And while I hate to compare this movie to Gone Girl, since none of the same pieces are involved, the two films are of the same genre. Gone Girl was so fantastic because just when you think you have things figured out, a new wrinkle is added to the narrative to make you second guess your hypothesis. Here, I was able to pin the culprit and motive down to one of two people as soon as all of the major players were introduced.
This coupled with weaker supporting performances makes the film suffer a bit. Maybe it was my own lofty expectations after watching the movie’s riveting trailer, but The Girl on The Train never feels as mysterious as it markets itself to be. By the end, the strength of Blunt’s emotional portrayal is the only thing keeping this from being a complete letdown.
FINAL GRADE: C+, Red Box it
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