Gone Girl took the world by storm last year. Rosamund Pike joined the ranks of great femme fatales, and Batfleck and David Fincher made that movie a great cinema ride for audiences. The Girl on the Train tries to replicate the formula Gone Girl attempted. Sadly, Emily Blunt, Tate Taylor, and Justin Theroux must have been Gone Girl‘s B team: solid, but delivering lesser results.
Rachel (Blunt) is in her downward spiral. She takes the train to and from New York everyday, passing her former suburban home with Tom (Justin Theroux). Because of traumatic events, Tom started cheating on Rachel with his now wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson). Grief stricken and perpetually drunk from these events, Rachel fantasizes about the life of the perfect couple two doors down: Scott (Luke Evans) and Megan (Haley Bennett). However, Megan has issues of her own she lays out to her therapist (Edgar Ramirez). Things reach a boil one night when Rachel leaves the train, hazily wakes up in bruises, and finds out Megan is missing. The lead investigator (Allison Janney) immediately suspects Rachel based on her past behaviors, and forces Rachel to recreate her steps that fateful night.
Erin Cressida Wilson, who wrote the screenplay, feels like she only skimmed the movie version of Gone Girl, taking the top level points and missing what makes it special. The Whodunit is front and center for The Girl on the Train movie (it is based on a book as well). That makes Tate Taylor’s job really hard: he has to make our heads spin trying to figure out who did what, when, and in a short period of time. As a result, some twists you see coming immediately (FIRST SUSPECT: dick husband who is abusive to his wife right from the get go! or Who is the mysterious man someone is hooking up in the woods with!!?!?). And because the plot is most important, your enjoyment of the film will dissipate exponentially if you know what’s coming.
What’s frustrating about The Girl on the Train is I can see simple changes to the story to make the movie much more interesting. The plot heavy script deemphasizes the characters to plot devices at various points in the movie, just wasting great talent. Emily Blunt’s Rachel is by far the most interesting character, and the story mostly revolves around her; however, the screenplay doesn’t invest us enough into her grief and mindset (not all the story’s fault: Blunt at her ugliest still is too pretty to play an alcoholic). I think Blunt was ready to play Rachel’s slow ascent from rock bottom, but a killer gets in the way. Rachel’s story is much more interesting because when the twists happen, they would have a devastating effect on our “heroine” and give us emotional investment that the movie sorely wants but fails to deliver.
While Emily Blunt is The Girl on the Train’s anchor, the women around her provide able support. Haley Bennett plays Megan as a lost woman who strives to gain control. Bennett nails the traumatic emotions she creates on herself, and also can play icily sexy very well. Rebecca Ferguson is decent as well, though the screenplay makes her hapless too long. And Allison Janney, with like 20 lines, gets the best reactions out of the audience because it’s Allison F’ing Janney. But leave it to the men to drag the ladies down. Luke Evans doesn’t have the chops and a poorly developed character to sell any subtext to his controlling Scott. Justin Theroux is not bad, though he’s clearly the biggest example of a character driven by plot necessity. And poor Edgar Ramirez tries hard to show us how pensive he can be and then literally gets forgotten by the movie.
Even with its flaws, The Girl on the Train is a good time. Emily Blunt and Haley Bennett do just enough to keep us interested in what’s going on, and there’s enough little twists for you to say “Oh, didn’t see that coming.” However, you know the movie might be poorly executed that certain scenes illicit laughter from the audience when Tate Taylor was going for shock. Sorry dude, maybe stick to James Brown.