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The Girl On The Train: Take The Bus

Written by Tommy Tracy

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The Girl On The Train Plot Summary:

Rachel Watson, an alcoholic who divorced her husband Tom after she caught him cheating on her, takes the train to work daily. She fantasizes about the relationship of her neighbors, Scott and Megan, during her commute. That all changes when she witnesses something from the train window and Megan is missing, presumed dead.

Adaptations are a tricky thing to pull off. When a novel is written, it is written for its medium, the pages between the covers that leave the visuals up to our imagination.  That being said, I have not read the source material for this film. I am aware it sold millions of copies, but I am here to review a FILM, not a BOOK and, quite frankly, this film sucks.

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We follow Rachel (Emily Blunt), who is obsessed with her ex-husband, Tom (Justin Theroux) and his new wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson). While riding the train from her home to Manhattan, she becomes enthralled with Megan (Haley Bennett) and her husband, Scott (Luke Evans). When Megan goes missing, Rachel finds herself to be a suspect while also trying to figure out who is behind this all. Confused? Me too.

The problem with these people is that none of them are likeable. Rachel is unstable and spends about 90 percent of the film crying and drunk. Tom is just an asshole, and his wife, Anna, an idiot. Megan is an unfaithful “whore” (her words, not mine), who cares only for herself, and Scott is, well, kind of boring and commandeering of his wife. When these people are considered suspects or, in Megan’s case, missing, you’ll find yourself not caring because they’re all awful human beings who don’t deserve happiness.

The editing choices here are atrocious. Whoever decided it’s a good idea to show flashbacks of things we literally saw FIVE MINUTES ago needs to be fired. Not only do we receive these little recaps on a regular basis, but they happen over and over. I can’t count how many times I saw Rachel fall down in the same spot while drunk in a three-minute span. It was nauseating.

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This film’s plot twist is the only decent part of the flick, but you can see it coming if you’re really paying attention. It does seem a tad out of nowhere, but hey, I’m trying to be positive here. However, there is a slightly smaller twist brought on by Lisa Kudrow that was actually pretty damn good. Is that a twist within a twist? Who is directing this, M. Night Shyamalan?

This film is proof that sometimes novels should stay where they belong, within pages written, where one’s imagination can run wild. I’m not saying the source material is bad. I haven’t read it and can’t comment on that. But when we get crap like this, it makes me feel bad for those devoted fans of the novel, who want to see their book become a reality. The comparisons to Gone Girl (a fantastic adaptation) are only going to further harm this film in the long run. The characters suck, the editing sucks and the plot is a headache. Do yourself a favor – skip this, or just wait for Blu-Ray.

Final Grade: 3/10

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