The Girl On The Train is an ambitious, supremely dark intensely female-driven thriller adapted from the popular 2012 novel by British author Paula Hawkins. The film version sees its action relocated from Hertfordshire to New York state and focuses largely upon Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) a 32-year-old alcoholic who is also recovering from the severe break-down of her marriage to Tom (Justin Theroux). She commutes into New York City every day, sitting in the same seat, sipping from the same drink, staring at the rows of suburban houses at the side of the rail track. She fantasies about some of the inhabitants of said houses, including amorous couple Scott and Megan Hipwell (Luke Evans and Haley Bennett), who have tendencies to caress on their balcony, cavort in their garden and snuggle under a blanket around an open fire. Things take a change for the worse one day when Rachel suddenly witnesses something significant from the train window – something which threatens to change both her and their lives for good.
The less you know about The Girl On The Train the better. The brief plot summary above barely scratches the surface of this surprisingly dark and intriguing thriller which quite nicely focuses on three very different, but very strong-willed women at the centre of its story. The book followed a first-person narrative, and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson has attempted to recreate that here. The film starts off by concentrating on Blunt’s supreme performance as Rachel, before moving on to both Haley Bennett (in her second film in as many weeks following The Magnificent Seven) as Megan and Rebecca Ferguson as Anna, both of who lend strong support in really well-written roles. Director Tate Taylor (The Help) uses strong visuals and excellent editing techniques to bring a well-know story to the screen; one which will no doubt attract the millions of fans of the book. The main issue here is that aforementioned point that one is best not knowing how the story plays out prior to viewing. Fans of the original novel may leave this movie slightly let down as there’s not much new ground covered – var its slight change in setting.
As a new viewer however, I found The Girl On The Train to be a really rather involving, though-inducing, twisty thriller that I was gripped to for most of its duration. Emily Blunt is particularly good as Rachel, while Bennett and Ferguson, as I said above, both lend very good turns as the equally tortured Megan and Anna. Then there’s Lisa Kudrow who pops up for a couple of scenes as Theroux’s old boss – another key catalyst to this story. In fact, it’s the male roles which don’t feel as fleshed out and develops as they should be – particularly Édgar Ramírez shrink Dr. Kamal Abdic, and Luke Evans’ Scott Hipwell. Theroux is fine in one of his most high-profile roles to date, and his performance was so well-honed that his involvement in the film actually had me guessing until the very end.
The Girl Of The Train will have a strange existence. It will attract fans of the source material though it has the potential to disappoint them. I’m told by folks that have read the novel that it doesn’t quite match up or offer anything new to absorb yourself in, but it could delight new viewers, of which I was one, who enjoyed it every single twisty step of the way.
Extras: The DVD, from which we reviewed the film, comes with a very detailed feature commentary by director Tate Taylor, which is very informative in terms of its detail behind the scenes of the film, and what went into making it, as well as some deleted and extended scenes, which don’t bring much in terms of added value. In all, a very limited release in terms of bonus content.
The Girl On The Train is released on DVD and Blu-ray from February 6th. It is out now on digital download.
