Review – The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train was ranked at number ten on my Most Anticipated Movies of 2016.  Based off the extremely popular book, this sounded like it could have been Gone Girl (2014) 2.0.

However, as the year went on and the trailers were released, I became worried that the director, Tate Taylor, who did marvelous work on The Help (2011), was not the correct choice to direct the film.  I was still excited to see it because of the popularity of the source material and because it starred the always great Emily Blunt in a juicy role, just not as excited as I initially was.

Unfortunately, my worries about the film were real.  The Girl on the Train is not a bad movie, but it suffers greatly from poor direction, spotty editing, and a lack of bite.

I can’t really give much of the plot away, because I don’t want to ruin any of the twists or turns, but the movie essentially follows an alcoholic (Emily Blunt) who gets entangled in a murder mystery that occurs in her former neighborhood.

The film’s strongest aspect is the performances.  Emily Blunt, one of my favorite actresses working today, goes all out in her performance.  Never before has Blunt been so unlikable, and yet so compelling at the same time.  She’s reckless, unhinged, and pathetic, all things that really make this a film a mystery.  She doesn’t know what happened and neither do we.

I was also a really big fan of Luke Evans as the abusive and controlling husband of the missing girl.  He brought a lot of intensity to his performance, but when allegations start piling up on him, he shows a layer that was unexpected.  I never thought of Evans as much of an actor, but this performance may have changed my mind.

Now let me talk to you about Tate Taylor and why his direction killed the movie.  First of all, I don’t understand why Taylor was chosen to take on this sex-charged, murder thriller.  As a director, Tate’s biggest efforts were The Help (2011) and the James Brown biopic Get On Up (2014).  Now, while he did a great job with The Help, no way do these movies qualify him for a movie like this.  I understand him trying to expand his horizon, but he should have done it with something else.

Where Taylor fails is in focus and intensity.  The movie is all over the place tonally and edited poorly, as well.  The movie goes back and forth between flashbacks and present day, and, with the help of time cards, we know when it goes to the past.  However, it took me a while to figure out when they would come back to the present, which mildly confused me.  The editing in the movie is incredibly choppy and erratic, which took away from the overall tone of the movie.  That’s where Taylor failed the most.  This movie has no bite.  This is a gritty, violent, sex-driven film, and it coasts through most of the intense scenes so much that it was teetering on the level of a Lifetime movie.  Their are brief flashes where Taylor does show the violence, sex, and alcoholism, but not nearly enough for this kind of movie.

At the end of the day, The Girl on the Train needed David Fincher and his editor, Angus Wall, and a score by Trent Reznor.  This team would have kept the atmosphere and tone, while also making the movie aesthetically appealing and not choppy.  But, we get this version, which, again, isn’t a horrible movie, but one of the more disappointing films of 2016.

MY RATING – 2.5/4

Did you see The Girl on the Train?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram @kevflix and find me on Facebook and YouTube by searching Kevflix.