Susan Granger’s review of “The Girl on the Train” (Universal Pictures)
If you were expecting an enticing psychosexual thriller, like “Gone Girl,” forget it!
This grim screen adaptation of Paula Hawkins’s best-selling novel dissatisfies in every way, except one: Emily Blunt delivers a powerhouse performance as the pathetic protagonist, Rachel Watson.
Lonely Rachel Watson is a deeply depressed alcoholic who rides Metro North train back and forth from suburban Ardsley-on-Hudson to Manhattan’s Grand Central Station, pretending she still has a job.
A bleary-eyed divorcee sipping cheap vodka from a designer water bottle, Rachel projects her vicarious fantasies onto suburbanites living in the stylish houses that run along the tracks near her old home.
She’s fascinated by one golden couple in particular: beautiful, blonde Megan Hipwell (Haley Bennett) and her handsome husband, Scott (Luke Evans). “She’s what I lost,” Rachel convinces herself.
Not really. Deeply discontented as a Stepford housewife, Megan is flagrantly promiscuous, even trying to seduce her psychiatrist, Dr. Kamal Abdic (Edgar Ramirez).
Adding to the intrigue, Rachel’s ex-husband Tom Watson (Justin Theroux) lives up the block; he’s now married to Anna (Rebecca Ferguson). They have a baby girl, and Megan was their nanny.
When Megan suddenly goes missing, Rachel becomes obsessed, reporting to a suspicious detective (Alison Janney) that – from the commuter train – she once spied Megan embracing another man on her upstairs balcony.
Problem is: Rachel suffers from boozy blackouts, so she’s not really sure what she remembers, except that – after one drunken night – she woke up bloodied and bruised. Matters get worse when Megan’s dead body is found.
Clumsily scripted by Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) and directed by Tate Taylor (“The Help”), it’s more like a tediously cheesy soap-opera than a murder mystery. And since the sneering, sleazy villain skulks around like a thug, it’s not difficult to guess who he is.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Girl on the Train” derails with a flimsy, fragmented 4, – quite frustrating.
