Đánh giá the.girl.on.the.train năm 2024

The divorcée Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) commutes every day to New York by train and watches the old house where she lived with her husband Tom Watson (Justin Theroux) through the window. Rachel is an alcoholic and sterile woman that frequently has blackouts and shares an apartment with her friend Cathy (Lura Prepon). Tom is married with Anna Boyd (Rebecca Ferguson) with the baby Evie. Their babysitter is Megan Hipwell that lives with her husband Scott (Luke Evans) in the same neighborhood in the suburb. Rachel admires Megan and Scott since she believes they are the perfect couple. However Megan is a promiscuous woman that has affairs with many men including her psychiatrist Dr. Kamal Abdic (Édgar Ramírez). When Rachel sees Megan kissing another man on the balcony of her house, she decides to have a conversation with Megan after drinking in a bar. However she has a blackout and awakens with bruises in her apartment. Soon she learns that Megan is missing and Detective Riley (Allison Janney) that is in charge of the investigation visits Rachel to interrogate her since the neighbors had seen an alcoholic woman wandering in the area. However Rachel does not recall what she did that night. Rachel decides to investigate the case and has dreadful discoveries about her life and Tom. Who might be the killer?

"The Girl on the Train" is a thriller with a good story but terrible screenplay. The characters are not well-developed and despite the great performance of the wonderful Emily Blunt, her character Rachel Watson is a complete mess. Megan and Scott Hipwell, Anna and Tom Watson, and Dr. Kamal Abdic are also one-dimensional characters. The non-linear screenplay could be better and better, but instead of suspense and tension, gives the sensation of a soap-opera. In the end, "The Girl on the Train" is a film with great potential and cast but wasted by a poor screenplay and inadequate direction. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "A Garota no Trem" ("The Girl on the Train")

163 out of 242 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

6/10

It Overcomes A Slow and Confusing Start And Becomes A Solid Movie By The End

To say the least, "The Girl On The Train" is a very dark movie. Unsettling. Confusing. Even baffling. There's an uneasy feel to this from the start. Something's off. Something's not right. Is this even reality, or is it a fantasy taking place inside the mind of a very disturbed woman? The disturbed woman in this case is Rachel (Emily Blunt.) She's an alcoholic and rides the same train every day, past the house where she used to live with her ex-husband. She sees their neighbours, and wonders about them and about their relationship. The female neighbour is the nanny to her ex-husband, his new wife and their baby. The movie mixes the story of all three (Rachel, Anna - the new wife, and Megan - the nanny) together. What drives it forward is that Megan has gone missing, and the question is what happened to her and who was responsible.

For a while I found this an unpleasant movie to watch. To be honest, I had to turn it off at about the half hour mark. It wasn't hitting home with me. But there was something about it that drew me back; I needed to see how this was going to turn out. In the end I was glad that I did. It overcomes the bleakness of the first half hour and although it still seems to walk the line uneasily between fantasy and reality, the mystery involved gets more and more engrossing, and the plot twist (you knew something had to be coming) happens with about a half hour to go - and it was, to me at least, completely unexpected. Not all is as it seems to be. The inter-twining of the stories of Rachel, Anna and Megan leads up to a sobering finish.

In the end I was surprised to discover that I was actually quite awakened from the slumber-inducing first half hour or so and really wanted to see how this was going to end. Emily Blunt's portrayal of Rachel was strong. The supporting cast was all right - I didn't think there were any outstanding performances aside from Blunt's, but it was Blunt's movie, and she pulled it off. It has to overcome that slow and bewildering first half hour, and it won't appeal to those who want a straightforward plot or who are put off by a movie with overtly dark tones. But by the time this was over I could honestly say that I was glad I watched it. (6/10)

33 out of 45 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

3/10

Derails very quickly

The book is a terrific and engrossing read, with a lot of tension and suspense, a clear timeline and while the characters are unpleasant you understand why they are.

In comparison 'The Girl on the Train' is down there among the most underwhelming book-to-film adaptations, with everything that made the book so good being completely lost in translation in the film. However it also is a failure on its own terms as an overall film, one doesn't even need to have read the book or have knowledge of it to still consider 'The Girl on the Train' a disappointment. If anybody likes the film, that's absolutely fine and good for them, as a huge mystery-thriller fan this was one of the year's biggest letdowns while not quite being bad enough to be one of the year's worst.

Comparisons to 'Gone Girl', which has a similar tone and a couple of similar themes, and almost universally negatively is understandable and inevitable. Will try and keep the comparison brief, to me 'Gone Girl' is the vastly superior film, actually being a good, no great, film. It isn't perfect, faltering at the end with a conclusion that feels abrupt and illogical, but it's better made and directed (the direction was one of the best things about that film, while the direction here dooms this film), the "Cool Girl" monologue alone is much better than any of the dialogue in this film, that had tension, suspense, emotion and delicious black but subtle humour and Rosamund Pike's performance is one of that year's best performances and in the top end of the best Oscar-nominated performances of this decade.

What saves 'The Girl on the Train' from crashing and burning completely is the acting, which is terrific on the whole. The women do fare better than the men, though the men, with Justin Theroux being the most believable, are no slouches either. Emily Blunt's lead performance in particular is sensational. The exceptions though are Rebecca Ferguson, who looks lost with a character completely stripped of what made her interesting before, and Edgar Ramirez who comes over as annoying. Danny Elfman's score is one of his more understated and memorable ones in recent years, not his best work by any stretch but tonally it fits very well, being soothing yet unsettling.

However, Tate Taylor as director is clearly ill at ease with the dark material, because throughout it's stiff, indifferent and far too much of one mood. The story is a complete mess, with no tension or suspense whatsoever and plot twists that are introduced abruptly and are executed confusingly, even incomprehensibly, due to the lack of a clear time line and with little surprises. The pace really drags on constantly so the film is constantly as dull as dishwater and there is an overload of sex scenes that are also tasteless as well as being melodramatic with the subtlety of an axe. In the end, one doesn't care how it ends and the ending or the revelation of the culprit are not done particularly well. The culprit's identity is not that shocking and is revealed too early, and then the film meanders on for another half an hour when the film could easily have ended at the revelation.

Another huge let-down is the very soap-opera-ish, underwritten and very half-baked script, that doesn't do anything to develop the characters, who are nasty without explanation or reason to be so it makes them empty and very difficult to relate to their situations. The production design is good but wasted by the very made for TV way the film is shot and edited. Particularly bad is the haphazard editing.

Overall, doesn't completely crash and burn due to the acting (especially Blunt) and the score but derails very quickly and is a train-wreck on the whole. 3/10 Bethany Cox

167 out of 295 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

9/10

This is a real sleeper of a movie.

I almost turned this movie off at 30 minutes. That's my cutoff time for bad ones. For some reason, I left it playing and kinda watched it. It was a very slow burn. The first 30 minutes were a snoozer. But then just after my cutoff time, the plot started moving forward. If you are going to watch this, plan on being bored for 30 minutes but the rest of the movie more than makes up for it. And you really have to watch it. There are so many entanglements that you won't know who is doing what to whom and why without really paying attention.

It is worth it. Don't want to give anything away but it has a real ending (unlike lots of modern movies) and it will satisfy you with the way it all comes out. You CANNOT predict the ending. You cannot see it from 30 minutes away. Just wait for it. It will justify your time spent (1 hour, 51 minutes).

66 out of 92 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

7/10

Hi, my name is Rachel and I'm an alcoholic... And a voyeur... Oh, and maybe a murderer as well.

In practically four out of five reviews for "The Girl on the Train" I encounter, there's a comparison made with "Gone Girl". Understandable, of course, since both movies are based on recent best-selling novels by female authors, and moreover both stories are narrated by a female protagonist that isn't at all trustworthy and/or good-hearted. Other acceptable, but slightly less relevant, reasons for the comparison include that both films have stellar casts in front, and gifted directors behind, the cameras. Tate Taylor perhaps doesn't play in the same league as David Fincher just yet, but "The Help" left quite an impression already, and this one does too.

This is the tale of three women. Rachel is a painfully derailed alcoholic who cannot accept the failure of her marriage and the loss of her beautiful house in the suburbs. Anna is the new wife of Rachel's ex-husband Tom, and mother of the child Rachel couldn't give him. Megan is Anna's neighbor and nanny, and she struggles with mental problems and her secretive past. Throughout the film, there are many more elements that connect these three women. Rachel commutes daily to New York and passes by the houses of Anna and Megan. She hasn't met Megan personally but imagines her as the ideal woman living the perfect life. When she sees Megan with another man on her porch, her fantasy-scenario collapses, and she's infuriated by a woman she doesn't even know. But when Megan goes missing the next day, Rachel sees it as her duty to investigate. Small detail, though, can she exclude herself as a suspect?

It must be said "The Girl on the Train" quickly becomes rather predictable. Especially if you have some experience with watching or reading similar urban thrillers, it's rather easy to figure out the twists and mysteries. Luckily this isn't a blocker to enjoy the film, because the performances are fantastic and because Taylor nevertheless manages to maintain a high level of suspense and continuous uncomfortable atmosphere.

4 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

8/10

Kept Me Guessing

This is an excellent mystery/thriller that had me 'grasping at straws' for a solid hour or so, trying to figure out who was 'good' and who was 'bad.' And...it's punctuated with a "killer ending!" (Yes, pun intended ~)

Plot in a nutshell: An alcoholic loner subject to blackouts (Emily Blunt) immerses herself in a missing-persons case in which she becomes a prime suspect.

(First let me state I have not read the novel on which this film is based. So my review and impressions are formed solely from watching the movie, where they should be. It seems most of the negative reviews here are from people who read the novel, then apparently watched this film with a notepad in hand, already knowing the story and the outcome but eagerly marking down every area that doesn't match the book, and then coming here to write negative reviews to vent about it. No offense to them (or you, if you are one of them), but the point here is to review the FILM - not to compare and contrast the film to the novel (or to anything else, for that matter). If you want to write a review of the book, go to Goodreads.com and write it there! This site is for the film, and it's what I want to know about. All of these reviews on here telling me about the book, and then giving a poor rating because the film isn't exactly like the book, are irrelevant and out of place. Let's talk about the FILM....)

And yes, it's a very good one. Emily Blunt does such a masterful job of playing an alcoholic social outcast, I agree with some others on here wondering why she wasn't even nominated for an Academy Award. It's that good. She plays one of three women around whom the story largely revolves (Rebecca Ferguson and Haley Bennett are the others). These three are all loosely connected in various ways that are not obvious at first but, through flashbacks and story shifts, we are gradually shown how they tie together. One of the three goes missing and the plot then shifts to solving that mystery.

Saying much more than this will ruin the story so I'll draw the line there. But I will say I found this to be highly entertaining and was constantly shifting my opinion as to who was the guilty one. At one point I guessed right (as it turned out) but I changed my opinion based on what was happening, only to find out I had been right 20 minutes ago! But that's the beauty of this film - just when you think you've got it figured out, you are given a new shred of information that makes you question everything you'd accepted before. That's good story-telling and worthy of acclaim. It's not a stretch to say "The Girl on the Train" comes from the same mold as the Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock classics. If you like those, you'll probably like this too.

8/10. Effective and intriguing mystery that deserves a much higher rating than it's current 6.5 here. Would I watch again (Y/N)?: Yes.

54 out of 76 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

7/10

You won't uncork a bottle of Malbec again without thinking of this film...

Warning: Spoilers

"The Girl on a Train" is the film adaptation of the best-seller by Paula Hawkins, transported from the London suburbs to New York's Hastings-on- Hudson.

It's actually rather a sordid story encompassing as it does alcoholism, murder, marital strife, deceit, sexual frustration, an historical tragedy and lashings and lashings of violence. Emily Blunt ("Sicario", "Edge of Tomorrow") plays Rachel, a divorcée with an alcohol problem who escapes into an obsessive fantasy each day as she passes her former neighbourhood on her commute into the city. Ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux, "Zoolander 2") lives in her old house with his second wife Anna (Rebecca "MI:5" Ferguson) and new baby Evie. But her real fantasy rests with cheerleader- style young neighbour Megan (Haley Bennett) who is actually locked in a frustratingly child-free marriage (frustrating for him at least) with the controlling and unpredictable Scott (Luke Evans, "The Hobbit"). A sixth party in this complex network is Megan's psychiatrist Dr Kamal Abdic (Édgar Ramírez, "Joy").

In pure Hitchcockian style Megan witnesses mere glimpses of events from her twice-daily train and from these pieces together stories that suitably feed her psychosis. When 'shit gets real' and a key character goes missing, Megan surfaces her suspicions and obsessions to the police investigation (led by Detective Riley, the ever-excellent Allison Janney from "The West Wing") and promptly makes herself suspect number one.

Readers of the book will already be aware of the twists and turns of the story, so will watch the film from a different perspective than I did. (Despite my best intentions I never managed to read the book first).

First up, you would have to say that Emily Blunt's performance is outstanding in an extremely challenging acting role. Every nuance of shame, confusion, grief, fear, doubt and anger is beautifully enacted: it would not be a surprise to see her gain her first Oscar nomination for this. All the other lead roles are also delivered with great professionalism, with Haley Bennett (a busy month for her, with "The Magnificent Seven" also out) being impressive and Rebecca Ferguson, one of my favourite current actresses, delivering another measured and delicate performance.

The supporting roles are also effective, with Darren Goldstein as the somewhat creepy "man in the suit" and "Friends" star Lisa Kudrow popping up in an effective and pivotal role. The Screen Guild Awards have an excellent category for an Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture, and it feels appropriate to nominate this cast for that award.

So it's a blockbuster book with a roller-coaster story and a stellar cast, so what could go wrong? Well, something for sure. This is a case in point where I suspect it is easier to slowly peel back Rachel's lost memory with pages and imagination than it is with dodgy fuzzy images on a big screen. Although the film comes in at only 112 minutes, the pacing in places is too slow (the screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson takes its time) and director Tate Taylor ("The Help") is no Hitchcock, or indeed a David Fincher (since the film has strong similarities to last year's "Gone Girl": when the action does happen it lacks style, with the violence being on the brutal side and leaving little to the imagination.

It's by no means a bad film, and worth seeing for the acting performances alone. But it's not a film I think that will trouble my top 10 for the year.

(Agree? Disagree? For the graphical version of this review and to comment please visit bob-the-movie-man.com. Thanks.)

89 out of 141 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

9/10

Brilliant

I have been on IMDb for a number of years and always rate the movies i watch. I have not written many reviews,however i think i needed to write this one. This film is brilliant. I haven't read the book but the story was excellent and having read reviews i am disappointed with the negative reviews of this masterclass in story and film making. Do not be put off folks, this was a real thriller mystery and deserves a big 9.the acting was superb,and having been in a drunken state myself for a time they couldn't have put it more realistic. Enjoy its really good, please check my review scores before taking my opinion,i don't like crap as you will see.

245 out of 358 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

10/10

How one person's selfishness can destroy multiple lives

Warning: Spoilers

By titling the book and movie "The GIRL on the Train" and making Rachel the narrator/protagonist, the audience is fooled into thinking this is Rachel's story, when really it isn't. This is TOM's story, and how his selfishness and single-minded pursuit of his own wants and desires ruins other people's lives. So here's a summary of the story, when you retell it from Tom's perspective: Tom wants the stereotypical perfect suburban life with the stay-at-home wife and 2.5 kids. He marries Rachel, but it turns out she can't give him children. So rather than adopt (because they wouldn't be "his" children, which I believe the book did point out), Tom starts cheating on Rachel and lets her become a raging alcoholic. Tom divorces Rachel, leaving her life a total shambles, and moves on to marry Anna, who promptly produces the baby he wants. When Anna then starts to focus on the baby rather than Tom, he starts ANOTHER affair with Megan (because of course, it's still all about Tom and what he wants). Unfortunately for Megan, who doesn't want children because of a trauma in her past, she becomes pregnant with Tom's child. Well, Tom can't have a pregnant mistress ruining his "happy" marriage with Anna, so he murders the inconvenient mistress. And that, in a nutshell, is the real plot line of this story. So what is the role of the girl on the train, other than to be the discarded, barren first wife who turns to alcoholism to deal with the loss of her husband and home? In an act of karma, she gets to witness (from her train) a piece of evidence which draws her into Megan's disappearance/murder and ultimately bring Tom to the justice he so richly deserves.

33 out of 46 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

8/10

Thriller that serves up a real mystery

We've all experienced the same monotonous train commute to work in our lives at some point. You go by the same places and see the same faces each and every day. None of us have quite had a commute that changes our lives quite like Rachel Watson in The Girl on the Train though.

Emily Blunt stars as Rachel Watson, an alcoholic divorcée who takes the same train to work each day. On her journey, Rachel fantasises about the relationship of Scott (Luke Evans) and Megan Hipwell (Haley Bennett), who live a few doors down from her ex-husband, Tom (Justin Theroux), and his new wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson).

Rachel's unstable state leads her on a downward spiral that sees her embroiled in a missing persons investigation that will change her life forever.

Based on the best-selling novel by Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train is a mystery thriller that reminded me of David Fincher's Gone Girl, which is not a bad thing at all. Now, while I don't think this is a better film than Gone Girl, I do think it serves up a worthy mystery that kept me guessing right up until the twist/reveal later on in the story.

The narrative is told from the point of view of the three main female characters; Rachel, Anna and Megan. It could have easily become quite convoluted and messy yet Erin Cressida Wilson's screenplay allows things to move along smoothly and without any confusion.

A lot of my hopes for this film were depending on the twist/reveal that would undoubtedly arrive in a mystery like this. Thankfully I can say that it was very well done and actually offered something totally different to what I was expecting. Yes, it gets a little far-fetched in the final act but if you go with it, The Girl on the Train really is a suspenseful watch.

Coming to the performances, The Girl on the Train features a great lead performance from Emily Blunt and a solid supporting cast, Haley Bennett and Rebecca Ferguson jumping on the paranoia train with Emily Blunt to great effect.

So, if you're a fan of either mysteries or thrillers, The Girl on the Train will be a journey you want to go on. If not, best to wait at the platform for the next train.

167 out of 273 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

2/10

Trainwreck

Warning: Spoilers

Based on a best selling novel and with a huge marketing campaign to back the film, The Girl On The Train oddly became one of the most anticipated films of the Autumn to Christmas period... But instead of being the Guardians of the Galaxy of this period the film fairs as well as this years Suicide Squad. The Girl On The Train is absolutely terrible and I feel rather sorry for Emily Blunt who I feel is left alone trying to salvage this wreckage.

The film is so melodramatic that it is physically exhausting. The script is I feel mainly to blame as many lines, especially Megan's, feel extremely pretentious and I can't help but roll my eyes almost every time someone speaks. Not only is the dialogue over the top but the characters are written in such an unlikable way and the story's progression is simply boring with one or two exceptions. I also took issue with some of the plot points but I am unaware if this fault lies with the book itself, or the film has adapted it and executed it in such a poor way... I think I'll give the book the benefit of the doubt and stick to the film as this must have been a Best Selling Book for a reason.

The characters in this film are extremely unlikable to the point that anything they say or do annoyed me. The frustrating thing about these characters, and this is again Megan's character mainly, is that they are often perfectly happy and fine but seem to go out their way to screw their lives up (with the obvious exception of Rachel). Megan was a huge issue for me as she had a seemingly happy life, she worked in galleries and with children and had a husband who loved her... But she just has to sleep around with the entire male cast to the point that you feel exactly what Rachel felt when she saw her from the train. Megan's character is rage inducing and for that I simply didn't care if she was alive or dead but instead wanted to give the culprit a medal... But even the culprit is a frustratingly irritating ass.

The best thing about this film by far is Emily Blunt's acting. I would call it the films saving grace but this film is far from saving. Blunt's performance of an alcoholic, voyeuristic, lonely woman who takes the same train everyday to watch the "perfect couple" is great. Of course the lines she is given aren't that great and her character is again irritatingly stupid I'm surprised Alison Janney didn't wack handcuffs on her, but as the plot thickens so does your understanding of her character and so she is excused. As I said earlier I feel rather sorry for Blunt who is tasked with holding the whole film together, but it sadly isn't enough even though she tried so hard and got so far, in the end it didn't even matter.

Overall, The Girl On The Train is one of the worst films of the year in my opinion. The Suicide Squad of the Autumn - December movie season. Emily Blunt tries her best but it isn't enough to save this melodramatic mess. Fan's of the book I'm sorry if I offend and I'm sure the book is good and worth the time to read... But the film is simply not worth the 112 minutes and the anger it generates. Stand aside Amy Schumer this film is the real Trainwreck.

140 out of 243 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

2/10

Read the book. No, seriously, read the book, it's so much better than this

Warning: Spoilers

The Girl on the Train is a novel that kind of jumped up on the world, especially with the unbelievable success of the book and movie versions of Gone Girl. Since then, this sub-genre of Domestic Noir has exploded and it seems that every novel that can be compared to Gone Girl has been optioned for a film: this, and Renee Knight's Disclaimer had the film rights purchased before the novels were even released to the public! It's a bandwagon that needs to stop, because I cannot understand how this movie could've been so disappointing and poor as it is.

As an Englishman, the film's location shift did aggravate me a lot. It's one of those things that changes nothing but everything at the same time; the train system in London is a very different one to New York, where it's more underground based. But that's a setting thing, doesn't affect the movie as a whole. What does affect the movie is how viciously, and how insufferably BORING IT IS! Seriously, this film treats everything like its the most binal and uninteresting thing, in which all the characters talk in flat and monotone voices, and the fact that screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson has removed so much of the kinks and human error from it. Add to this is that most of the characters are completely flat, with almost no backstory - the only real "backstories" being had by Megan and Rachel, more of those in a second - and this makes everything SO hard to sit through, or barely care when stuff happens. Tate Taylor, who made the excellent The Help some years ago, and directed his actors in that with such confidence and zest, makes me wonder why this movie is so lifeless, and why he struggled to direct his actors in this with any human qualities to them. It's like he is trying to out-Gone Girl Gone Girl, but the problem with that is that David Fincher is clearly more adept at darker material; the way Fincher accentuates moments of extreme pivotal violence, like Amy's murder of Desi, or gives a clear indication of where/when stuff is happening, or made the only real monster of the movie Gone Girl Amy, and made the others human but just flawed in some way. Everyone here is just nasty, in some way, but in such unremarkable ways - or ways that are made to feel unremarkable, such as Rachel inserting herself into Scott Hipwell's life after his wife is murdered.

OK, Rachel's backstory is quickly glossed over; she was unable to conceive, so she began her spiral into alcoholism. That's it for her, and Emily Blunt, who is at her best when portraying characters being slowly broken down by life, does her best, but as stated, there's really no humanity to Rachel, so alas is all blowing into the wind. Megan, played by Haley Bennett, is by far the most tragic character, and that is because we can see how irreparably damaged she is from the death of a baby she conceived at a young age, to the point where she ends up in the situation that gets her killed. And Anna? Yeah, she's just there, she does nothing short of providing a good ending for Rachel, but all of her vindictive attitude is removed from the book, and so Rebecca Ferguson looks completely lost and is easily the weakest of the 3 main characters. Luke Evans tries, but is stumped by the absurd amount of sex scenes him and Bennett are involved with and an absence of character beyond that. And Justin Theroux as Tom is just a nasty guy; now, in the novel he's a nasty guy, but he was a nasty guy with a past, and in this he has no past.

Really, in the end, Blunt and Bennett tried. Thumbs up for that. This movie however is just jumping on the Gone Girl bandwagon, but not taking the effort or care that movie took with its material. Just...just read the book.

199 out of 340 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

9/10

Emily Blunt worth an Oscar!

I read some of the reviews here, and came with very low expectations to this movie, and WOW, what a pleasant surprise! Blunt gives here the show of her life, way above the level of acting in "edge of tomorrow". The story itself takes time to build but it all adds to the atmosphere, and finally you get a fair amounts of twists and turns. Bennett and Ferguson also acting very well, which all adds (to my opinion) to a great film. And to all the men that say it's a "men hating" film, I say that you really have a low self-confidence to come up with such a statement... I would risk to say it's one of my 2016 best films, and I will be surprised if Blunt will not be an Oscar nominee for this film.

154 out of 223 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

9/10

Award for Emily? Should be....

The first point I'm going to make is that this film is outstanding, prior to seeing it, people made the point that it's very similar to Gone Girl, I agree to z minor extent, but in my opinion this is the better film. The story is wonderfully clever, how many of us haven't sat on a train, looked out and people and wondered how different our lives would have been, had we made different choices. The way the story unfolds is loaded with intrigue, you keep asking questions in your mind, all the way through to the revelation at the end. I always knew Emily Blunt was a class act, I just had no idea she was THIS good, she produced an utterly incredible performance as the tormented Rachel, it will be an outrage if awards don't follow for her. Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, to name just a few are also brilliant.

I'm so glad the mystery genre is alive and well, and hitting the big screen. If you love a mystery, my advice is please go and see this movie. I utterly lived it. 9/10

22 out of 40 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

2/10

Bitterly disappointing

Bitterly disappointing.

It's the best way I could describe my feelings towards Tate Taylor's The Girl on the Train adaptation.

A film so devoid of any imagination, life or characters worth caring for, this 100 minute thriller is one of 2016's biggest letdowns and the millions of fans of Paula Hawkin's popular (if somewhat polarising) book are likely to be left cold by this big budgeted wannabe Gone Girl.

The comparisons to David Fincher's 2014 hit, that in many ways shares similarities to this tale of domestic (un)bliss, murder and intrigue were always going to be made and have been made by many in the lead up to Girl on the Train's release and now that we've been able to lay our eyes on Taylor's film, it pales in every department.

Core to the failures when comparing the films is in both the tales characters who were interesting in Gone Girl and uninvolving here in Train while the most important aspect of a thriller of this nature being the mystery that draws us into the murky world is quite sadly bereft here as around 30 – 40 minutes from the films conclusion Taylor has played his reveal card far too early as any chance we had of being under illusion as who is who is taken away and the films rather grizzly final stanza feels worse off for it, despite the best efforts of the films talented and underused cast.

Looking worse for wear and giving her all, Emily Blunt tries desperately to elevate the film around her in her portrayal of hard drinking and divorced Rachel who is our films focus but despite her commitment and dedication Rachel is not an overly appealing character and remains hard to watch for most of the films runtime. It's a great showcase for Blunt's continual work to push herself as an actress but surrounded by the miscast Justin Theroux and Luke Evans and the misused Haley Bennett, Girl on the Train ends up delivering one of the years great crimes against talented cast members.

At the end of the day there's not much more to say about Girl on the Train other than the fact this is a real non-event and an event that could've easily become the years big breakout thriller.

So uninspired and against all the odds boring, Tate Taylor's film is not even worthy to be mentioned in the same sentence as Gone Girl or even other lesser thrillers of similar ilk, so disappointing for all who were involved in this "could've been" film. This is one train you can afford to miss.

1 sippy cup out of 5

46 out of 90 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

4/10

dull

The Girl on the Train boasts a (mostly) intriguing performance by Emily Blunt; she commits to this character as what appears at first to be a 'drunk mess' and is one of three major woman characters in this story of deception and murder. But the plot is simply dumb, and more than that is deathly dull. This would barely pass muster as an episode of Law & Order (or for that latter obviously Lifetime), and despite the appearance of the occasionally dependable Justin Theroux (remember him in Mulholland Drive?) the cast doesn't bring anything to the threadbare characters. The rest of what is essentially a soulless Lifetime movie has nothing to offer. What a lump of a 'thriller'. Even a scene like the one woman describing a tragic incident with her infant that IS dramatically potent gets lost in the slop that is this plot and story and... What characters to even speak of? Forget about Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train made me pine for€ *What Lies Beneath*!

30 out of 59 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

7/10

Well done, complex mystery

Well, I enjoyed this movie to the point I would watch it again to catch some of the nuances you miss during first viewing. The story is a bit complicated with several couples in overlapping relationships, but that makes it interesting. The actors are all good with real responses to the surprise events. Unveiling the main character's, Rachel, story in drunken snippets adds to the tension. Some other reviewers complain about plot points that don't make sense but, in some cases, it's because the reviewer did not understand the plot and the inter-relationships of the characters. Special credit to Emily Blunt and Haley Bennet for portraying the angst in their personal situations.

33 out of 46 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

9/10

A gripping psychological thriller with plenty of twists

This psychological thriller opens with Rachel, a commuter on a train into New York, looking out of the window. As they pass through the area where she used to live with her ex-husband, Tom, she looks at the house two doors away. She observes a woman, Megan, standing on the porch. She doesn't know anything about the woman but in her mind she imagines what her life might be like. In reality Megan was working as a nanny for Rachel's ex and his wife Anna until recently. Then one day Rachel sees Megan with a man who isn't her husband and is infuriated as it reminds her of how her marriage ended. She decides to get off the train at that station and as she does so she confronts a woman in a tunnel... the next thing she knows she is waking up at home covered in blood. It turns out Rachel is an alcoholic who is prone to blackouts and the day she got off the train was the last time anybody saw Megan. Rachel approaches Megan's husband Scott and, from photographs, identifies her psychiatrist as the man she saw Megan with. What follows is an investigation into what happened to Megan; there are many possibilities and Rachel is not the most reliable of witnesses; so much so that she doesn't even know if she was somehow involved in whatever happened.

When I started watching this I was expecting to be reminded of 'Rear Window' but as the story played out the film this reminded me of most was 'Gone Girl'. Having an unreliable main character meant that until the end it is hard to guess exactly what happened to Megan and who was involved. This keeps things very tense right until the end. Through a series of flashbacks we learn more about Rachel's past as well as details of Megan's past. Emily Blunt does a really fine job as Rachel; it is hard not to sympathise with her character even when there is the possibility that she may have done something bad. There is fine support, most notably, from Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux and Luke Evans as Megan, Anna, Tom and Scott. There are plenty of good twists, especially towards the end leading up to a finale which I must admit is a little melodramatic. Overall this is a solid psychological thriller that fans of the genre are likely to enjoy; I'd certainly recommend it.

10 out of 17 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

Well-made murder mystery, worth a look.

Warning: Spoilers

We watched this at home on BluRay from our public library.

We eagerly anticipated this movie because my wife, a steady reader of fiction, had read the book and enjoyed it. We saw the trailer several times and we like the actors.

Emily Blunt is Rachel, she lives along the Hudson a bit upstate and takes the train into Manhattan each workday morning. She likes to sit at a window and observe live outside the train. In particular she wonders about the lady she often sees on her second story porch. The lady that is now married to Tom, her ex. One day she sees a man with her, one she doesn't recognize.

Soon after the lady's nanny comes up missing and eventually her body was found in the woods. The main of the movie is the investigation into the murder and the possibility that Rachel is somehow responsible. Rachel thinks the man she saw with the lady holds the key to solving it.

For me, not knowing the book, the presentation was a bit frustrating because often short snippets are shown out of context, we don't know if it is real or imagined, possibly even a dream. So I stopped the BD player and asked my wife, "Does all this make sense to you?" She said it did because she read the book but also that it isn't supposed to make sense to me yet. So we continued.

You have to watch this movie with patience, it all eventually makes sense. The story is rather straightforward but they use editing and flashbacks to weave a more complex presentation. Which is fine, it is a movie-making technique.

SPOILERS: After her divorce from Tom (Justin Theroux) she started drinking heavily and actually became homeless of sorts. A friend let her stay with her for a while. As it turns out Rachel was going into Manhattan each day, and returning at the end of the day, but had no job, she had lost it a year earlier because of her drinking. She often blacked out and had only a fuzzy recollection, if any at all, of what happened the night before. However after starting AA meetings and becoming sober she starts to remember and actually provides the key to finding that Tom had killed the lady, a former nanny, because the nanny had become pregnant with his child.

2 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

5/10

Gone Girl without the tension, emotion or drama

Warning: Spoilers

First off, I will admit that I've not read the bestselling book that The Girl on the Train is based on so my thoughts are based purely on the movie adaptation.

I usually love a fast paced thriller with twists and turns to keep me metaphorically on the edge of cinema seat. The trailers had led me to believe this might be the case for The Girl on the Train. How wrong I was.

The screenplay and direction were often sloppy while the editing was so messy it often felt like scenes were pieced together purely at random. I really struggled to warm to or identify with any of the characters in a film where all men are portrayed as controlling and deplorable and any sense of female empowerment is lost amidst the absurdity of the relentlessly twisting plot.

I have to call out Emily Blunt's stunning lead performance - she steals every scene she's in with a nuanced, conflicted and honest portrayal of a complex and intriguing character. Quality support performances from Luke Evans and Haley Bennet help but don't save the movie and most other characters are so slight and one-dimensional that they fade into the background.

The Girl on the Train felt like Gone Girl without the tension, emotion or drama.

5/10

157 out of 278 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

8/10

A Compelling Psychological Thriller

Warning: Spoilers

A fragmented flashback structure and an unreliable narrator are jointly used to describe the context within which a brutal murder takes place in this compelling psychological thriller. The device works well in making the mystery at the heart of its story far more intriguing than it would otherwise be and also reflects the sense of confusion and disorientation that play such an important part in the daily life of the main protagonist. Her inability to rely on the veracity of her own perceptions and memories is particularly troubling and the emotional pain and instability that she suffers as a consequence becomes increasingly hard to bear.

Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) is a depressed divorcee who regularly commutes by train between Ardsley-on-Hudson and Manhattan and routinely gazes out of her carriage window at the house where she used to live with her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux) who now lives there with his new wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson). Rachel feels huge resentment against the woman who was having an affair with Tom when they were still married and is now the mother of his baby daughter. Rachel had been unable to conceive during her marriage to Tom and the despair that she suffered as a consequence had been instrumental in her becoming an alcoholic. Just a few doors along from Tom's house live Megan Hipwell (Haley Bennett) and her husband Scott (Luke Evans). Rachel sees them as a really perfect young couple and imagines that they must live a perfect life together.

Rachel's bitterness against Tom and Anna manifests in some unpleasant ways which result in Anna living in fear of her and coming to the conclusion that she's unhinged. One day when she sees Megan on the balcony of her house hugging a man who isn't her husband, Rachel becomes incensed and in an alcohol-fuelled state, decides to confront the woman who she doesn't realize has also been employed by Tom as his daughter's nanny. Rachel has a blackout and wakes up back at her apartment covered in blood and bruises and subsequently learns that Megan has disappeared and that she's suspected of being involved.

In the days that follow, Rachel tries to recall what happened on the night of her blackout and makes her own investigations into the circumstances surrounding Megan's disappearance and subsequent violent death. She makes only limited progress until one day on the train when she meets the wife of Tom's former boss and something that Martha (Lisa Kudrow) tells her proves to be the key to unlocking the mystery surrounding Megan's death.

Based on Paula Hawkins' best selling novel of the same name, "The Girl on the Train" is consistently interesting to watch and understandably became a great commercial success. The three main female characters are all damaged in various ways by the treatment they've suffered from the men in their lives and issues to do with babies and the two main male characters are both controlling and abusive in different ways. The mood of the whole piece is rather downbeat and beautifully complemented by its top class cinematography, well-chosen colour palette and acting performances that are all commendably strong with Emily Blunt making her portrayal of Rachel especially intense and believable.

10 out of 16 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

2/10

Southern Rail provide more drama

Warning: Spoilers

Saw the film two days ago. It started alright but just never really went anywhere in terms of drama, intrigue, pace, suspense or any of the key components of a murder mystery thriller. By the end of the film you just don't feel anything for any of the film's main characters. Having not read the book, I can't say whether the book is suspenseful but the film has less drama than the current Southern rail conductors strikes. When eventually the killer confronts Emily Blunt's character you really don't give a flying fig. The film makes me relish even more, wonderful murder thrillers like Jagged Edge, Seven, Fargo, The lives of others, Silence of the Lambs, and Basic Instinct.

88 out of 151 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

10/10

I liked it, even if mystery thriller is not my usual kind of genre

I don't usually watch mystery thriller dramas - I generally only go to big budget action movies. I knew next to nothing going in about what this movie was about, which is probably the best way to go into this movie (so in this review I'm not going to discuss the plot at all, just how I felt about the movie - it's better this way). I knew Emily Blunt was in the movie and that it was based on a novel and that's really about this it. Despite all this, I actually liked this movie.

Who hasn't observed strangers from a distance and imagined our own life stories for them? What if we got lost in our own imagined thoughts and turned them into a dangerous obsession? It's an interesting premise on which to base a story.

The movie kept me guessing; it wasn't predictable. It had me feeling disturbed, engaged, sad, and cringing at the unfolding events. I guess this is exactly what you'd want from a mystery thriller.

52 out of 98 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

An interesting mystery for 80 minutes, but then two predictable things happened...

Warning: Spoilers

Two things.

Firstly, the "third man" was extremely predictable, and I mean from at least 50 minutes prior to the reveal. I hoped it wouldn't be that obvious but it was. Tom being the killer may be logical but it's also lame. This is supposed to be a mystery, not a 5-dime potboiler. I mean, come on... The guy shtooped the promiscuous nanny, not like it didn't happen a million times before. (Admittedly, he hired her as a nanny after the fact, which is an original touch.) It had to be him, and I mean even BEFORE someone mentioned a "third man".

Secondly, and this is the bigger drawback, the obligatory stoopid thriller ending had to (somewhat) ruin an otherwise good movie. Rachel does literally everything wrong, for example by going to Anna instead of reporting everything to the police once she realized she was innocent. Extremely predictably, Tom gets a chance to kill everybody who is in his way, which is pretty far-fetched, and a bit too much of a windfall for such a dumb, impulsive murderer. Both Anna and Rachel make all the convenient/contrived wrong decisions at the end, endangering their own lives. Still, even this situation he manages to botch.

Yup, crime thrillers films ALWAYS have to end dumb. Always. This isn't even a proper thriller, at least not the first 80 minutes aren't - it's a crime drama mystery - but once a Hollywood movie goes into thriller mode, watch out: you've just entered the Land of the Stoopid & the Far-Fetched, just in order for (dim-witted) audiences (who don't know better hence don't deserve better) can get a few cheap thrills before the credits roll.

Come on, that dumb scene with Rachel screaming "murderer!", banging at Tom's door. Sure, she's unstable, but must she be dumb too? You know what they say, "just because someone is crazy doesn't mean they're dumb".

Then again, the way the two women "jointly" kill Tom has a touch of originality about it, I have to admit, as does the fact that the two fierce rivals were united at the end.

Another nice touch is the irony of the "other woman" herself becoming the cheated wife who has to deal with a new "other woman", the next in line. It never ceases to amaze me whenever women get "promoted" from being the "other woman" to becoming the wife - then are shocked when the guy later cheats on her, repeating the adulterous pattern. Poetic justice, with a touch of absurdity: women being amazed that the same could happen to them.

There are some inconsistencies in the first 80 minutes, while this is still a mystery drama. The most glaring one: WHY would the shrink be at Meghan's house? He makes house calls? And how convenient for the two to hug just as Rachel is watching the house from the train window. Fine... Coincidences always find their way into such scripts, but this big coincidence is made even more implausible by the illogic of the shrink's presence at her home. And they hug in plain view of the neighbours? Not realistic. This is assuming Megan and the shrink didn't consummate their "affair", which the movie is - very surprisingly - not clear about.

Just as weird is that Rachel was able to observe so much detail from a moving train, which is at quite a distance from the houses she'd been spying on.

I am a bit peeved that the movie cheats its audiences by making us believe that Rachel was the violent loose cannon, instead of Tom. Sure, he lied to her about these things, about her alleged drunken violence which it turns out never happened, but this was shown in way that cheated the viewer, i.e. We never got a fair chance at having the whole picture. And yet, despite this "cheating" I (and presumably many other film-goers) were able to figure out that Tom was the killer.

Another wild coincidence is that Tom hits his ex Rachel at the exact day when Meghan reveals her pregnancy. To the movie's credit he didn't go out of his way to kill her right away after being told this, but simply told her to get an abortion and was on his way. Yet, somehow Meghan initiated a big fracas needlessly and even gets physical by pushing Tom, which of course leads to her demise. It's a bit much that Tom gets to attack two women within a short space of time, at the same day, especially since he isn't a serial-killer but a one-off murderer. But hey, these things are typical plot-devices in stories of this type.

The mystery is set up very nicely though, and the characterization and character motivations were almost - dare I say - elaborate and intelligent, especially for a modern-day American crime mystery. By all logic and odds, this should have been a far dumber film. Instead, Meghan's and Rachel's characters weren't one-dimensional but complex and fully explained. The female cast is quite above-average for modern-day American movies, so I have no complaints there at all. If it weren't, I'd have very probably skipped the film anyway because I have no more patience for lousy casting, thespianic incompetence, and unattractive female protagonists.

Normally, I don't watch these kinds of films, but I was mislead by the synopsis to believe this might have elements of fantasy. But it turned out alright, despite some flaws in an otherwise very solid script. The dialog and characterization were above average, some of the basic twists not so much.

2 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink

3/10

Taylor drags this one out.

Is "The Girl on the Train" this year's "Gone Girl" or is it this years "50 Shades of Gray"? Sadly this 21st century 'women's picture' is more Gray than Gone and had me crying out for the good old days of Bette and Joan. Instead we get Emily Blunt, (so much better than the material she's given to work with), as well as Jennifer Lawrence lookalike Haley Bennett and Rebecca Ferguson as three women caught up in a fairly obvious murder plot. These are women who have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune mostly at the hands of the men in their lives, here played by Justin Theroux, Luke Evans and Edgar Ramirez.

I haven't read Paula Hawkins' novel but this bestseller seems to me to be fairly aimed at a female audience who know doubt will lap up all the trials on show. The fact that the film isn't really any good certainly won't prevent it from being a huge hit nor will it stop Emily Blunt picking up an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, (she certainly pulls out all the stops), and, of course, director Tate Taylor has already proved his worth where actresses are concerned with "The Help". This certainly isn't in the same class nor does it bode will for Taylor as a director of suspense movies. He reveals the killer's identity too early on and then drags the film out for at least another 30 minutes or so.