The Girl on the Train (MA15+)
Starring: Emily Blunt, Justin Thoreaux
DAYS after seeing this film, I still don’t know what to make of it.
It’s a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, covered in secret sauce.
First things first: Emily Blunt is brilliant, with another world-beating performance.
Her character is a scorned woman, a hopeless alcoholic who peers at the life she used to have through the window of a train she idly rides each day.
Her former husband is there with a new wife and a new baby, while Blunt’s character blearily sips vodka from a water bottle.
She’s a bitter harridan, a drunken shrew who drove her husband away.
Or is she?
And did she witness a murder … or did she do it?
Much of this film centres around perspective, and the lead character’s battle with the bottle colours our view of her, and her reliability as a witness.
Justin Thoreaux is great as the ex-husband, as are the other central female characters – the new wife, a nanny, and a hard-bitten detective.
It’s hard to escape the thought that this film was written with a female audience in mind. To say more would involve plot spoilers I simply cannot divulge.
It will take you somewhere else. You will love it and you will hate it.
And I still don’t know what to think.
– Jason Beck
