Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Édgar Ramírez, Laura Prepon, Allison Janney, Darren Goldstein, Lisa Kudrow, Cleta E. Ellington, Lana Young, Rachel Christopher, Fernando Medina, Gregory Morley, Mac Tavares, John Norris, Nathan Shapiro, Tamiel Paynes, Peter Mayer-Klepchick.
When you reach the bottom of the glass, perception is everything, it can define who you are because of what you see or what you fail to register; the comfort of the glass might be the great pain killer and momentary healer but it does nothing for your eyesight or your ability to think through a situation clearly.
Eric Cressida Wilson’s screenplay of Paul Hawkins’ novel The Girl On The Train perhaps takes that thought of awareness and observation down a path which is not that well travelled, like a railway track only open on certain days of the year because the maintenance of it is too steep, the journey etched in peril because of crumbling cliffs, but it is one that for many is too alluring to withstand and it is one that the pain of the past can find you hiding from.
The Girl On The Train sees how abuse can manifest, how the finger of blame can easily be shifted towards those to whom their only crime is too feel numb or outcast, how one person’s actions, no matter how perceived, can wreck havoc on a community of people.
Playing the part of an alcoholic is no mean feat, it is not an easy virtue to perform, especially in a female actor, to capture it takes guts, a single minded approach in which the feeling of alienation must manifest itself truly to be worthy of the excess and damnation one feels; the crash that inevitably comes as life hits the barriers time and time again. For Emily Blunt this is arguably a great moment on screen and it is unfortunate that her performance is slightly stilted by what can be seen as the general miscasting in some of the other parts on screen with only Allison Janney as the investigating detective giving off the vibe needed to make the film an insightful piece of work and one that would hit the spot of the female psyche in the same way that for example The Hand That Rocked The Cradle managed or the exceptional Gone Girl.
The Girl On The Train is a good film which could have had so much more attached to it, the sense of menace almost silenced into submission but one that when it screams is heard audibly and with great humility; a piece that suffers and soars with equal measure.
Ian D. Hall