Luke Evans and Haley Bennett
Emily Blunt delivers a powerful portrayal of an alcoholic reeling from a painful divorce in “The Girl on the Train,” a solid but by-the-numbers thriller that offers intertwined tales of distraught women.
As Rachel, Blunt portrays a deteriorating drunk who spends part of her daily train commute observing her favorite house and its loving residents, in the scant seconds when the carriage passes by that idyllic neighborhood.
She’s familiar with the place, however, as she once lived in the same area with her then-spouse, Tom (Justin Theroux), just a few houses from the seemingly ideal and mysterious couple—Megan (Haley Bennett) and Scott (Luke Evans).
Suspicious disappearance
Rachel becomes involved in their lives after one particular visit to her old community, but she’s too stinking drunk to recall the events of that fateful day—which happens to be when Megan suspiciously disappears.
“The Girl on the Train,” it has to be said, shares a similar moody ambience with the 2014 crime drama, “Gone Girl,” also about the disappearance of an attractive woman.
But apart from a puzzling vanishing act, there are other noticeable elements, like the subdued suburban color scheme, the pervading eeriness of nearly isolated locations, and the way some puzzles are unveiled.
Storytelling sleight of hand
Despite all those, this film by Tate Taylor, based on the novel of the same title, is still discomfiting in the right places. It has its own storytelling sleight of hand. But it does arrive at a rather typical denouement.
Emily Blunt
Still, it benefits mostly from the tight ensemble’s consistent and precise activation of highly flawed and infuriating characters.
Each has praiseworthy moments, but the standouts of “The Girl on the Train” are easily the women—Blunt, Bennett and Rebecca Ferguson (as Anna, Tom’s new wife)—whose tales convey a morbid, train wreck-like fascination for stories of willfulness and weakness.