The Girl On The Train (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #12.1 extract: Girl On The Train (2016)

The Girl On The Train is a pretty excellent film. Formally brilliant in many respects with great performances, though with some shaky characterisation of peripheral characters, this is ultimately a really strong thriller. 

Somewhat reminiscent of Gone Girl and Elle, the most compelling aspect of this film is certainly the manner in which it explores the phenomena of people taking all that is broken within them and projecting it on to the world. This of course has innumerable consequences, but one of the most devastating would be meeting someone else just as, or more so, broken that you. Fire feeds fire, fire consumes fire and before you know it, there is nothing but destruction. The only hope for someone who stumbles into this situation is that they emerge from the ashes a better person, their broken internal dead wood shed. 

This is a pretty complex and powerfully articulated idea that, unfortunately, is held back by the genre elements of this film. In such, the form of the film and structure of the script are too focused on making this is a psychological thriller rather than a narrative that solely serves this greater idea. If The Girl On The Train had managed this, I wouldn't be saying it is reminiscent of Gone Girl or Elle, rather, something like Persona. The fact that we didn't get this is somewhat disappointing, but this is a good film nonetheless.