150 Word Review: 'Train Dreams' (2025)
All aboard
So much of America was built by men far from home, just trying to survive a day’s work and make a buck, and then, hopefully, see their families, who are also busy trying to make it through blizzards and wildfires. Director Clint Bentley’s sentimental adaptation of Denis Johnson’s lyrical, moving novella of the same name introduces us to Joel Edgerton’s Robert Grainier, a man born at the turn of the last century who does not know the exact date of his birthday. His life is toil until he falls in love and learns that life is deeper, more beautiful than he thought.
Bentley’s movie is about man’s uneasy relationship with nature, and with violence and greed. Felicity Jones turns her role as the perfect frontier woman into a three-dimensional character.
Is Train Dreams Malick-esque? Sure. It also reminded me of Robert Redford’s minor 1992 masterpiece A River Runs Through It.
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Joel Edgerton, lovely as usual, looks so fragile in this movie, you'd want to hug him but at the same time you'd hesitate, lest he shatter into a million pieces at your touch. Great performance.
This book was so good I’m afraid to see the movie. Same reason I did not see “The Road”