Truly terrible…
There is a thing called domestic noir. I don’t know much about it aside from the woeful offerings of Gillian Flynn but based on the two films I have seen that were based on her works, I don’t like it. The Girl On The Train emphatically confirms this assertion. This review will be deploying spoilers liberally but I wouldn’t worry as the film has already been completely spoiled by the creators.
The Girl On The Train focuses on three women. They are all, uniformly, complete maniacs. One of the girls, Megan, once allowed her baby to drown and then ran out naked into the snow. She manages to shrug off this trauma in order to have sex with absolutely every male character whilst uttering absurd, hysterical clichés. Rachel spends the whole fucking movie literally catching trains to nowhere whilst getting hammered. That isn’t me being glib, that is actually what happens. She is as awful a person as you would expect a bitter, raging alcoholic to be. The third woman, Anna, is so underdeveloped and dull that I forgot who she was until the moment she started violently plunging a corkscrew into her husbands neck.
Speaking of her husband, that brings us to Justin Theroux’s Tom. A man so over the top in his villainy that he could have come from a Marvel comic. Like Megan, he is also fucking everyone with the added extra of being a serial abuser of various women. This brings us to the main problem with The Girl On The Train. Every character is a total piece of shit. Was I supposed to be rooting for Rachel? The woman who abducts an innocent child at one point? Do I want justice for Megan? A woman so over the top in her sexuality that she could barely splutter a line of dialogue without also struggling to remove her clothes? Or Annie perhaps? Is her name even Annie? Is it Anna? Who the fuck even cares.
It all boils down to the fact that nobody anywhere is anything like the characters presented in this film. It is completely hysterical, melodramatic and just plain unbelievable. Oh and look, Lisa Kudrow is also here because of course she is. Apparently The Girl On the Train is supposed to be a thriller. I was definitely far from being thrilled.
I would literally rather be trapped on an actual train with Lisa Kudrow for two hours than have to sit through this bag of pricks again. Come back Gone Girl, all is forgiven.