Rachel (Emily Blunt) is an unemployed alcoholic divorcee who rides the trains everyday, sketching what she sees.
She rides past one particular neighbourhood more than others, where the houses have no blinds and their lives are on display: her ex-husband, his new family, the next-door nanny and her husband.
One day one of them goes missing and the only one who saw anything was blackout drunk at the time.
We say, “It’s no Gone Girl, but it’s still good.”
TAYLOR: People are down on this film because the marketing department wanted us to compare it to Gone Girl and we shouldn’t.
They are very different films. They are similar in only one way, in that halfway through the film our opinions of all facts change greatly because we discover one new fact.
Just like in Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train too must keep her secret in order for it to be effective. There will be no spoilers here.
HOWE: Gone Girl, it is not, but I am happy to say this is just as interesting as that one.
In GG, you had one main suspect from the very beginning. In Girl on the Train, every time someone new popped up on the screen they were the suspect, and I thought to myself they did it.
It was very well done and put together nicely. I really enjoyed how they used Blunt’s character’s blackouts to give us just the right amount of information to keep it trickling along till revealing the outcome at the end.
The acting is very good and somewhat believable by some of the cast, even though I had never seen some of them before now.
TAYLOR: I liked it. It is the most female movie I’ve ever seen. It’s all about women. Al the main characters, save for one, and most of the secondary characters are women. Everything felt very real, very emotional, very hurt. There’s a speech in the film about betrayal and how it makes one feel. All those feelings pour out of the screen throughout this train ride. In the end, I felt satisfied that I had seen a well-made film, but also exhausted, then depressed.
This is a mystery/thriller, but the thrills are skin deep. In the end, we’re left with same dissatisfied righteousness of the characters, the remorse of the avenged.
However, despite having characters too often in their underwear and leaving me in a bit of a funk, The Girl on the Train is a fine film, deserving of a chilly October’s viewing.
HOWE: I agree Girl on the Train is worth the visit to the movies, so grab the popcorn and drink, sit back, enjoy the film and play detective for a couple of hours.
– Taylor gives The Girl on the Train 4 binoculars out of 5.
– Howe gives it 3.5 sketches out of 5.
For current movie listings in Vernon, visit: http://www.cineplex.com/Theatre/galaxy-cinemas-vernon
or Vernon Towne Cinema at: http://www.vernoncinema.com
– Brian Taylor and Peter Howe are film reviewers based in Vernon, B.C.
