Seems odd to write about this so soon after The Girl with All the Gifts, a very different film with a very similar title. Be very careful about the ticket you ask for at the cinema, folks. But it also falls into the category of “films based on books I have read”, so it’s also odd to write about this so soon after watching Room. Maybe next I will read The Girl with All the Gifts, and this will come full circle in some way…
The Girl on the Train
is based on the 2015 novel by Paula Hawkins and was one of best-selling books
of last year. In a nutshell, it’s the
story of Rachel (Emily Blunt), an alcoholic divorced woman who becomes involved
in a missing persons investigation after noticing and fantasising about a
couple that she sees every day from the train window. She’s sure she knows something about the
missing person, but is piecing together fragments of memories from her
drink-addled mind.
Disclaimer: I’m not sure what I think of this film, and my
hesitation is partially due to my viewing experience (in which a drunk man
repeatedly disrupted the film because he had lost the beer he had brought with
him and was most insistent that he should find it again*). So I’m not as convinced by my own opinion on
this, but my overall feeling was that I didn’t particularly care for the
film. Part of the rationale for that is
that the film employs a couple of tropes that just really bug me. I don’t know if they’re universal issues, or
just specific to me, and wouldn’t mind hearing what you – dear reader – think about
these.
Issue 1: Inner
Monologues.
When a book has been made into a film, it is difficult to
take a character’s inner monologue and make it evident on screen. The quickest and most used method of doing
this is for there to be a series of shots of the main character doing various
innocuous things while a voiceover basically reads out the appropriate “character
exposition” chunks of the book. And then
we get on with the action. The problem
with this, for me, is that it’s usually the first thing that happens on screen
and I’m not quite settled into the film yet.
The closest analogy I can make to explain is introducing a character is a bit like a conversation –
there’s a bit of inconsequential small talk in which you can learn a little
about the other person – and after rapport has been established, you can then
move into more significant chat. If someone was just to walk up to you and
start telling you the contents of their heads (“hello – I’m an alcoholic and I
always take this train and I like the look of this couple I see when I look out
the window”), you would not engage much further with that person, short of
finding out if there was someone with them who would look after them, before
beating a hasty retreat. An exception to
this is children (“hello – I like dinosaurs and I like the flying ones best and
my friend is Jack and he has a fine hat but he stole my crayons today and I
have a cat!”). For some reason, it’s fine
when children do this, although the adult response is usually the same...
 |
| Actually, I might watch that film... |
 |
| Maybe this woman could just tell me the film. That's another option |
This seems to be something that’s becoming more and more
prevalent, or maybe I’m just becoming more aware of it. It’s particularly widespread in films that
involve crime, politics or superheroes.
Main characters will spell everything out, once, usually 5 minutes into
the film, leaving a very confused me halfway into the film thinking “wait –
which side is he on? Who is that? What was the very important plot point I had
to remember?”
I would argue that the average viewer needs a Donna Moss
character – one who mainly functions to ask “what did you say half an hour ago? Why’s that important? What happens if we blow this up exactly?” Or for the story to be told better – example 1:
The Girl With All The Gifts where significant
plot points are introduced gradually, as the audience gets to grips with each
in turn. Example 2: The
Magnificent Seven (2016): will they explain exactly why everything’s going
on? No.
It’s not important and you don’t need to know.
Needless to say, The
Girl on the Train takes a few info dumps and I disapprove.
Emily Blunt is a good enough actress that you’ll follow this
character and be interested, but her character is a very clean functioning
alcoholic. You can tell when she’s drunk
because she has cracked lips and slightly messy hair. Sobriety is indicated by lipstick and a hairbrush.
 |
| Oh no, she's such a terrible mess(!). How has she let herself get in this state?! |
Flashbacks are used frequently and confusingly so that it’s
difficult to tell what’s actually going on, and when and how. Arguably, this could be tremendously symbolic
of the incomprehensible lifestyle of the main character, except that the same
techniques are used for the other (not alcoholic) characters, so this is not a
deliberate motif. Which is a shame.
The final third suddenly lurches into focus, and things
become tense, taut and interesting, but after sitting through nearly two hours
of meandering, it’s too little too late.
It’s not a dreadful film, and certainly not the worst I’ve
seen (not even the worst I’ve seen this year), but it’s disappointing because
it could have been better. It could have
been thrilling. I was not thrilled. I was more interested in the shenanigans of
the drunk man in the cinema on his quest for beer*, and that’s not a great review
for any film.
* My husband insists I make it clear at this point that I am not referring to him
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