519: The Girl on the Train

[00:00:00] 225. Let's get to The Girl on the Train, which came out in 2016. It's directed by Tate Taylor, stars Emily Blunt, Hailey Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Edgar Ramirez, Allison Janney.

[00:00:18] And the synopsis is, a divorcee becomes entangled in a missing persons investigation that promises to send shockwaves throughout her life.

[00:00:31] So when this one came out, I was curious because I like this kind of thing as I talked about with The Snowman recently.

[00:00:40] This is sort of one of those airport bookstore novels that are kind of trashy, but there's just something about it that is catchy and you can't put it down.

[00:00:51] I think the main reason it's fairly obvious that this one came out mainly because of the success of Gone Girl. It's very much in the same vein.

[00:01:02] This is a perfect example to go ahead and get right into it of if Gone Girl had been done by someone else other than David Fincher.

[00:01:13] Tate Taylor, I hate to say it, I think he peaked with the help. That's a great movie to me, despite it being a little blunt in its commentary and portrayal of everything.

[00:01:25] I think it's still a very well made film, but I feel like since then his filmography has been so all over the place and not really for the better.

[00:01:35] I don't mind if you bounce around to different genres and styles. That's fine, but I don't think Tate Taylor has the subtlety, the finesse, the confidence to do all of these different genres well.

[00:01:51] I don't think it's all like, get on up with Chadwick Boseman, Ma with Octavia Spencer, and then this. It just feels like he cannot get a real footing.

[00:02:02] And while I don't think that this is a horrible movie, it could have been done so much better.

[00:02:07] I haven't read the book for this. I heard it was quite good. I did read Gone Girl, but I have not gotten around to reading this.

[00:02:18] The overall concept is pretty interesting of Emily Blunt being this very broken down, damaged, alcoholic divorcee.

[00:02:29] She just happens to get caught up in this missing persons case and is an unreliable narrator of sorts.

[00:02:38] Even though she's not a detective, she sort of serves that role.

[00:02:45] All that is interesting, and I like the setup of that world of her being on the train and these different women who all have these odd connections with one another.

[00:02:54] And they all have their own issues and their own motivations for things.

[00:03:01] It's just that whether it's a script issue or a direction issue or both, I feel like all of these women, or really everyone, they become dumbed down to cliches, to really broad, uninteresting stereotypes that we've seen a million times before and done much better.

[00:03:25] From what I understand from people who have read the book, there's a lot more there going on with those characters and what you think about them mentally, psychologically, all those things.

[00:03:36] I like the cast. The cast is good, and they definitely carry it for the most part.

[00:03:44] But what I found to be most frustrating is that it's not only a very flat part, like there's a lot of emotion that I see, let's say, on the page.

[00:03:54] But so much of it comes through as unintentionally goofy as I'll get to some things or just downright vanilla.

[00:04:04] Circling back around, what's most frustrating is that her portrayal, Emily Blunt, her portrayal of being the unreliable narrator, it's not done in a way that I'm like, ooh, like what's real, what's not?

[00:04:16] I'm just thinking the entire time, okay, what am I supposed to be paying attention to? What am I not? Am I supposed to care about this person? Are these visions obviously not real? Are they meant to be?

[00:04:30] I just found like it was so confused, and I think that's mainly Tate Taylor.

[00:04:34] He just did not have the right grip on this to where I was intrigued by all that rather than taken out of it.

[00:04:43] Really one of the only on-point scenes, and it's mainly because of Emily Blunt, and she's great in everything. She's fantastic.

[00:04:53] The scene in the therapist's office towards the end, I think maybe two-thirds, where she's saying, I'm afraid of myself, and she's talking about her divorce and how the booze destroyed everything, and she just became so sad.

[00:05:09] I think that performance where it hangs on her face, hangs on those tears, I'm then thinking like, wow, I'm invested in her in this moment.

[00:05:22] But then it gets far away from that, and it becomes a very messy mystery.

[00:05:30] Also, in terms of, I don't know how it's done in the book, feel free to comment if you have a way to comment, but while it deals with domestic abuse in a variety of ways, and while I'm not a statistician,

[00:05:45] I would think most of the time, nine times out of ten, it's the man abusing the woman, I did find for a moment, until they flipped it over, I did think for a moment that it was interesting they're portraying Emily Blunt as being the abuser to Justin Theroux.

[00:06:06] And I was like, wow, I haven't really seen that much in movies, like in terms of, because that is a real thing, obviously it's more so the other way around, but in the context of the movie, I was thinking that's really refreshing, like that's an interesting take.

[00:06:21] But then you realize, oh wait, that was just a alcoholic-ridden dream, and so that was yet another example of, nope, that wasn't real, actually.

[00:06:31] So the ending, the third act, it's not horrible, I think the corkscrew in the guy was effective, and there's a few other moments of violence that work, but having just come two years after Gone Girl, there's just no comparison.

[00:06:51] Especially if you think of the final moment, the bed scene in Gone Girl, compared to this, the execution of her seeing this possible murder of this missing person, all of it feels very convenient.

[00:07:09] Like, too convenient, like, oh, she just happened to see it, oh, she just saw this again, and this again, it just didn't really mesh in that way.

[00:07:20] I think it's still watchable, and there's something intriguing about it, nevertheless, despite all the flaws.

[00:07:28] The score is good, and it looks pretty good, I like the locations, the look of the houses, the look of the train.

[00:07:38] However, one, going back to one negative thing, sorry.

[00:07:42] There are these moments with Emily Blunt where I'm thinking, alright, what is the direction thought behind this?

[00:07:49] Because the scenes where there's at least one or two of them, when she's running away, either through the woods, or through these high weeds from the houses of the other women,

[00:08:03] Tate Taylor shoots them in these really wide-angle, deep-focused shots that show her stumbling around drunk,

[00:08:12] and it's not in any way effectively dramatic, or creepy, or I think sympathetic.

[00:08:19] It's just kind of laughable how she's doing that.

[00:08:22] Or even one of the better performance moments that I think is ruined from her is, I think towards the beginning,

[00:08:29] is when she's looking in the mirror and talking about, I think, strangling the woman.

[00:08:34] It just feels so clumsy that I'm not thinking, oh, this is like nail-biting suspense, this woman is insane,

[00:08:43] or even thinking about the scene somewhat similar to Nightcrawler, where Jake Gyllenhaal is screaming at the mirror,

[00:08:52] and he's breaking it and shaking it.

[00:08:55] And that's an effectively scary, disturbing scene.

[00:08:58] And in this, there's none of that.

[00:09:02] Which makes me feel bad for Emily Blunt, because I feel like she's really giving a great, very committed performance.

[00:09:13] Overall, I can go back and re-watch it, or if it's on TV or on a streaming site,

[00:09:19] I can definitely have it on in the background, or if I'm just really in the need for a pulpy crime thriller,

[00:09:28] I just am very disappointed more than anything of the potential that it has.

[00:09:33] And I hope that Taylor either finds a genre that he feels more comfortable in,

[00:09:39] maybe just going back to regular dramas,

[00:09:42] or if he feels the need to continue with these horror films and thrillers,

[00:09:48] he improves his skills on handling the more delicate stuff that could easily go off the rails.

[00:09:55] No pun intended there.

[00:09:59] That one is a light 3 out of 5.