Film Review - The Girl on the Train (15)

I am not the girl I used to be.

The Girl on the Train is a film adaptation of Paula Hawkins' 2015 bestseller (like you didn't know). Hawkins' novel was touted as last year's Gone Girl, sharing as it did that story's theme of marital disharmony along with the mysterious disappearance of a lead character. Both books also made use of more than one deeply unreliable narrator and proved brutal on multiple levels - physical and psychological.

Director Tate Taylor's film stars Emily Blunt as Rachel, the foremost of three flawed female protagonists. Mired in alcoholism following the break-up of her marriage, Rachel obsesses over her ex-husband's happiness with his new partner Megan (Haley Bennett). She also spins an elaborate fantasy around the couple who live doors down from her former marital home, observing them on her daily train journey and imagining that they represent the domestic bliss she craves. When the spied-on wife vanishes, Rachel's voyeuristic hobby provides her with possible insight into the disappearance. Plagued by alcohol-induced blackouts, she becomes a self-appointed witness in the investigation, however dubious her evidence. 

The strength of the original novel was the untrustworthy nature of its key narrator and its unflinching portrayal of her alcohol addiction. This the film captures well, through Blunt's bravely unflattering performance; the camera lingers long on her puffed and blotchy features, swaying and losing focus so that we end up doubting her as much as she does herself. The editing too makes for scenes as fractured as Rachel's groping mind. It is the movie's most courageous move to make the ostensible heroine of the tale both pitiable and erratic to the point of psychosis.

Sadly, however, the book's weaknesses transfer to the screen as well. The overall tone of the screenplay is a grim one, with none of the humour that undercut both book and film versions of Gone Girl. The early scenes are ponderous, particularly flashbacks to conversations between soon-to-vanish Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) and her therapist, and what should be a compelling thriller often slows to an over-stylised crawl. Events pick up pace as Rachel stumbles her way in search of answers, finally escalating towards some truly shocking moments. You might, however, have guessed the truth long before it gets to that point.

Ultimately this is a workmanlike piece of storytelling, made more compelling by the finely-observed central performance. If you want to see the attractive Ms Blunt go somewhere dark and spiritually ugly, this is still a film worth seeing.