Review - Train Dreams
Directed by: Clint Bentley
Written by: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, William H. Macy
Running Time: 102 Minutes
Rating: 4/5
Train Dreams is a melancholy memory that is bound to devastate and encapsulate you. Joel Edgerton’s quiet silence echoes across generations; a story about the longing for a simple life at the turn of the century. Every frame will haunt you long after its final scene.
Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams drifts across the screen like a feverish silhouette, a half-dream, a half-haunting. A slow-moving collapse of a western; stripped of shootouts and gangs, trading pistols for pines, gunpowder for grief and empty deserts for the Pacific Northwest canopy. Bentley imagines a novella, brought to life with a flair for Terrence Malick and the lush, balladry of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. An American tragedy drenched in whistles, whispers in the shadows of the horizon.
A mediation on loss, grief and simultaneously, the yearning of a simple life; Train Dreams is an elegy to the American frontier and the men and women who lived in its shadow. Adapted from Denis Johnson’s novella of the same name, the film traces the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger who passes through the forests, rivers and settlements at the turn of the century. Grainier is a man shaped less by what he says than by what the world demands of him. He doesn’t know much about his own family - except of what he can attain, understand and remember from his past. He moves forward, yearning for tomorrow - and the next day and that thereafter. The world changes around him and he can only keep up with so much.
Joel Edgerton delivers a career-best performance. Grainier is a man of few words, yet in the stillness of his gaze we sense entire histories: grief carried quietly, love left unspoken, survival shouldered without complaint. His restraint becomes monumental, a portrait of ordinary endurance rendered profound. He longs for his wife (Felicity Jones) and his child; his small cabin by the flowing river, his dog and a place to call home. He watches the world change with every fleeting moment and every single sunset. His soul restless in silence.
Clint Bentley presents Train Dreams exactly like it is; a fleeting memory that feels all too familiar - a dream that we’ve lived countless times. One that we can recount and feel every emotion, every nuance and every second of its time. Forests sprawl into infinity, rivers glow with molten light and every rain fall feels like an elegy of passing time. Bentley’s Dreams encapsulate with stunning cinematography that elevates and feverishly consumes us with grace and a visceral pain. With a stunning score by Bryce Dessner; every picture feels like a hymn, a prayer to a past life and our future dreams.
The film also refuses spectacle - there are no major set pieces, no massive scale extras and stunt ensembles. Train Dreams devastates in its simplicity - the time it takes to move from chapter to chapter; every character serves a purpose and a key element in Grainier’s life. Even in the most inhospitable of environments, the most tragic of sequences, Grainier remains unshaken.
Every frame aches and every note lingers - as if the film itself is grieving. A powerful memory that will linger long after its final frame.
Train Dreams will be released in select theatres on November 7 and globally on Netflix on November 21st.
