The Girl on The Train (2016 Film)

‘Take us all away and you’re just a pathetic, impotent man’ - Megan

Paula Hawkins standout novel ‘Girl on The Train’ was out for less than a year before production began on the film. This rush I feel made the film unable to present the captivating, suspense filled story Hawkins had created.

Director Tate Taylor decided to set the film in the suburbs of New York City and though it’s often thought as being quite similar to London due to the weather, population and fast pace of the city, the film lost a large element of thriller that the book had by it being it set here. Despite New York having busy and well used transport links, each train and train station in the film was practically empty which lost the sense of urgency that train station typically have and carried on to the story as there appeared to be no particular rush to find Megan Hipwell.

Also, the story bounced around sporadically between different times and people which made it difficult for me to have sympathy for anyone character. Hayley Bennett though was the stand out for in the film for as she had me so wrapped up in the various layers of character. Her portrayal of young and liberal Megan Hipwell took me on many emotional journeys at times on her side and other times questioning her actions. No surprisingly the women took all my attention and consequently my praise. Emily Blunt portrayed professional alcoholic Rachel Watson well with her lack of confidence in her speech but being able to capture everything through drawings, which I found to be a nice addition. However her portrayal suggests that Rachel was never in complete control of herself but instead that everything was unravelling uncontrollable around her. This was really different to the novel which presented Rachel as the main narrator manipulating the world with her lies and trying to keep this control despite her constant black outs. Her lack of control greatly impeded on the thriller aspect as it failed to point the guilt strongly in her direction.  

As the film was based on a domestic noir it seems fitting that the women take most of my attention during the film, it doesn’t however excuse the flawed performances of their male counterparts. This was the first film I’ve watched a film that featured Justin Theroux and I’m not impressed. He was unable to convince me of anything from his anger at Rachel still being in his life to his supposed love for Anna. The same stood for Luke Evans who played Scott Hipwell who didn’t present himself as someone I could feel sympathy for but remained unnecessarily aggressive throughout. I suppose it didn’t help that I had the idea of Jared Leto in the role and instead started to visualise him doing it just so much better.

Overall, I feel the buzz of the novel and the wish of Hollywood to capitalise on it was the main pitfall of this film and caused everything to crumble after. Potentially if they waited, developed the script and improved the cast it would have been a better adaption of Paula Hawkins captivating novel.