Based on the hugely successful 2015 book by Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train stars Emily Blunt as Rachel Watson who travels to work in New York City by rail each day. While commuting she passes the home of a seemingly happy couple, she wonders who this couple are and imagines the life they lead which may seem strange until we realise that Rachael is a broken woman and these fantasies are the main drive keeping her going each day as her personal life is a shambles since her marriage to her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux) ended in divorce when she found out that he was cheating on her.
As we find out more about Rachael we also realise that the train also passes by her old home where Tom now lives with this same woman Anne (Rebecca Ferguson), who is now his wife, and their baby. So the voyeuristic nature of her commute is not just random and she is struggling badly to cope and move on with her life.
We are also introduced to Megan Hipwell (Haley Bennett) who is unknowingly the feature of Rachaels fascination from her passenger window. She is married to Scott (Luke Evans) and on the outset they do indeed seem like a perfect couple but Megan too has a troubled past and is seeing a councilor to deal with her seeming inability to want to settle and need to keep changing things up in her life to keep her going so she is unhappy in her relationship with Scott who seems to be controlling and aggressive.
When Rachel spots Megan with a different man on the balcony of the house one day she is both shocked and intrigued but when she later learns that Megan has gone missing she realises that she may have a vital clue in the case. Thanks to her instability as a person however she is deemed an unworthy witness. Rachael takes it upon herself to investigate her sighting further which puts her in the direct line of Scott, Tom, Anne and the police but having found purpose in her life she begins to find some clarity in her memories and it soon becomes apparent that all the characters in the tale have more to them than initially shown and with the suspect list growing there are many people who had motive to harm Megan.
Emily Blunt really gave her all in the film and her believable performance as the broken woman was deserving of a better outcome as the movie suffered from trying to hard to be a clever thriller along the lines of David Finchers Gone Girl but the material didn;t seem to have the strength to allow for that stance. Not having read the book I cannot comment on how faithful the movie is but while director Tate Taylor deserves credit for keeping the suspense tight in the second part of the film it may have been better if a female director was at the helm given that the tale is essentially about three women and their bizarrely intertwined relationship, plus with the themes of babies running through the whole story, since each of the main characters seems to have some form of past or present link with pregnancy or parenthood, it may have been more suited to have somebody who had gone through the act of childbirth behind the camera. However, in saying that, in terms of the story, it was a good way of giving the character relationships some meaning and purpose rather than just being a set of random circumstances.
It’s difficult to be spoiler free and yet give some insight into this movie as it’s best watched with no knowledge of the character since the layering of each is one of the movies biggest strengths therefore if you have read the book you may not be as intrigued as I was by the set up. Yet, even without that knowledge, while it is a decent thriller with many twists and turns that unravel as snippets of information are revealed, characters traits are peeled back and the reality within the story becomes clearer as Rachaels consciousness itself becomes unclouded, the slow burning tension is not given the finale it deserves as the crescendo of drama ends with the climax of a faulty firework.
DJ Speaks Rating: 5 Out Of 10
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