It’s difficult being original in Hollywood. So many
ideas have been re-done or too many sequels have dried the well of
originality. The trick is to make something familiar feel fresh.
‘The Girl on the Train’ is a good example. Taking its cue from Alfred
Hitchcock’s directorial thrillers, especially ‘Rear Window’, it crafts a
compelling narrative. The guessing game of completing a puzzle is half
the fun of an unoriginal but still reasonably captivating film.
Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) is a divorcee regularly
commuting to work by train. Continually fantasizing about the
relationship of her neighbours, Megan (Haley Bennett) and Scott (Luke Evans),
helps lessen the mediocrity of the journey. When witnessing something from the
train window, she learns Megan has vanished. With her life quickly placed
in great peril, Rachel is caught in a tangled web with the beast of deception
entangling her within its clutches.
Based on the novel by Paula Hawkins, ‘The Girl on the Train’
is a competent puzzler. Rachel’s inner demons are a constant barrier to
unravelling clues with her ex-husband and his new wife also entering the fray.
Their presence cloud her judgement further diluting her already frayed thought
process. Tate Taylor directs these elements with flair despite the
script’s poor presentation. Continually scattering the time-line to
scramble events makes the story difficult to follow with it not resolving until
nearly the end.
The plot is also very contrived with a reliance on high
co-incidences becoming tiresome. Blunt and her co-stars rise above such
inadequacies by giving strong performances. Even if the film slightly
goes off the rails, the earnest conviction of their characters shines
through. The cinematography and music is suitably bleak, generating the
right amount of foreboding atmosphere needed.
There have been better thrillers made, although ‘The Girl on
the Train’ is worth checking out. It offers its share of predictable
thrills but is diverting enough. The guessing game is effectively kept
until the end with the final shocking crescendo reaching an horrific aria
worthy of any tragic opera.
Movie Review Rating out of 10: 6
Movie Review by Patrick Moore
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