The Girl on the Train (2016) is one of those high-profile thrillers it feels like I should have seen a long time ago. Somehow it slapped past me, though, and I can see why; while decently executed, it’s not all that interesting.
A troubled alcoholic with a checkered past, Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) spends her train commutes into New York City spying on certain houses and imagining the lives of the people in them. Chief among her fascinations is Megan (Haley Bennett), an attractive young woman who seems to be in the perfect marriage to dark-haired, handsome Scott (Luke Evans). As it turns out, though, Rachel’s voyeurism isn’t entirely casual, also involving a happily married couple nearby: Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) and Tom (Justin Theroux), the latter of whom happens to be Rachel’s ex. Prone to drinking blackouts and obsessing over her past with Tom, Rachel’s unhealthy routine is shattered when she spots Megan cheating on her husband from the train — which spirals her into further involvement with the domestic dramas she left behind.
Not having read the original book by Paula Hawkins, I can only speculate that The Girl on the Train was a concerted exercise in unreliable narration — with Rachel’s booze-addled observations making her a suspicious witness when the mystery and mayhem kick off. That aura of unreliability may have been intended to extend to its secondary and tertiary protagonists, Megan and Anna, as all three womens’ experiences are meaningfully entangled. It’s possible some point-of-view legerdemain didn’t entirely translate well in the adaptation, however. While the weave of relationships, actions, and misperceptions unfolds with a certain engaging polish, there’s something disjointed about the narrative — but perhaps not in the way its deliberately fragmented structure intended. The players bring professional poise to fairly bland roles, while the mystery itself becomes decidedly less interesting the closer it gets to being solved. In the end, it’s an attractively made but underwhelming piece of work.
