Who knew commuting on a train every day could lead to so much excitement
Stars: Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans
Director: Tate Taylor
Synopsis: Rachel (Emily Blunt) is an alcoholic who is still struggling from the breakdown of her marriage. Every day she catches the train too and from New York City all the while drinking to drown her sorrows and observing the lives of two households along the route. On one such occasion she randomly leaves the train and then wakes up in her apartment, covered in blood and with no memory of the previous day until a missing person report on the news has her questioning her involvement and determined to figure out the truth of what happened.
Opinion: I dove head first into this movie knowing very little about it and by that I literally only know it was a thriller, starred Emily Blunt and she was an alcoholic or something like that. I also knew it was based on a book but clearly, I hadn’t read that either so yeah it was ultimately a blind movie date because yes I’ve just decided that’s a thing.
So, what did I get from this movie? A whole lot of things I really wasn’t expecting, that’s for sure. Firstly, I need to say that Emily Blunt, as usual, was so damn good in the role of alcoholic Rachel. Everything about her performance was great and had me feeling a range of emotions from frustration to total pity for her. What I hadn’t been expecting though was that she was one of three central female characters which the story revolved around and each one was somehow linked to the others and the events unfolding were all intertwined in some way.
It’s set out in a chapter style, similar to that I’m guessing of the book it’s based on, and as you work your way through the story you see the twist and turns get slowly revealed as Rachel begins to remember pieces from a black out drunken moment she had forgotten. This is always a style I like, having the pieces of the story fed to you bit by bit and revealing clues and hints along the way. In this case, however, I found the major twist at the end to be a little too predictable and figured it out much earlier than I would have liked which kind of made the second half feel a little drawn out rather than the thrilling conclusion it should have been.
So, while I enjoyed the performances by the cast, especially Emily Blunt seriously I need to repeat the fact that she is just so damn good in this, and the story is decent, it just wasn’t executed as strongly as it could have been which was the ultimate letdown.
Rating:
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