THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN REVIEW

Erin Cressida Wilson‘s script remains structurally similar to Hawkins’ novel, but some of the characters are not included in this two-hour movie. There is more to Tom and Rachel’s relationship in the novel that makes their relationship more believable, making the violence and deceit in the story more visceral and nasty, less fancy than it can be here.

The movie is directed by Tata Taylor and written by Wilson Erin Cressida Wilson (screenplay), Paula Hawkins (based on the novel by). The movie covers

Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson in the lead roles.

The Girl on the Train is the story of Rachel Watson's life post-divorce. Every day, she takes the train into work in New York, and each day it passed by her old house. The house she lived in with her husband, who still lives there, with his new wife and kid. As she attempts to not focus on her pain, she starts observing a couple who live a few houses down -- Megan and Scott Hipwell. She creates a wonderful dream life for them in her head, about how they are a perfectly happy family. And then one day, as the train passes, she sees something dreadful, filling her with rage. The next day, she wakes up with a horrible hangover, various wounds and bruises, and no memory of the night before. She has only a feeling: something terrible happened. Then come the TV reports: Megan Hipwell is missing. Rachel becomes invested in the case and trying to find out what happened to Megan, where she is, and what exactly she herself was up to that same night Megan went missing.

Critics Consensus: Emily Blunt's outstanding performance isn't enough to keep The Girl on the Train from sliding sluggishly into exploitative melodrama.

It almost feels like a lot of The Girl on the Train's potential was left on the cutting room floor, taken out for simplicity. But characters like these deserve complex treatment. And audiences need more than just the (expected) twist in the end if you want to leave them puzzling over a movie after the credits roll. What we get instead is an interesting enough, creepy enough experience, but with a healthy hash of "seen this before."