Clint Bentley's Train Dreams is a very sad film. In fact, it's one of the saddest films I have seen this year. This is something I didn't realize while I was watching the film. Well, let me be a little more accurate. Sure, I could recognize Robert Grainier's pain, and I knew he was going through a lonely, devastating experience. But only at the very end—when Robert was in the air and the narrator (Will Patton) began describing his final days—was I hit by a wave of heartache. I don't always cry at the movies, and I generally hate films that try to score points by forcing tears. However, Train Dreams is inherently so emotionally crushing, and its final scenes break you so completely, that the most natural response is to cry. It helps that Robert is played by Joel Edgerton, whose face seems innately good, pure, innocent. His eyes are kind and nonjudgmental, his smile softens his countenance, and his body, despite being sufficiently burly, doesn't appear to be very heavy. Edgerton's Robert, in other words, looks like a fluffy teddy bear. A logger by profession, he keenly listens to the stories of his co-workers, but doesn't accept them as either complete truth or dismisses them as complete fiction.
Bentley puts this gentle creature of nature in a hermetically sealed bubble. As a child, Robert couldn't comprehend all the hatred directed toward the Chinese people, who were being mass-deported. As an adult, he lives a quiet, peaceful life: he goes to work, earns money, and returns home to his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones), and their daughter. With a small house amidst a vast green landscape, Robert and his family live in a cozy, safe haven. Such tranquility, alas, cannot last forever. Robert, after all, is a man, and men can be, intentionally or unintentionally, cruel creatures. Robert and other loggers cut trees, causing environmental damage. In one scene, they throw a Chinese colleague off the very bridge he is helping them construct. Robert, too, lends his hand in throwing that man, thus committing another offense. These loggers, then, are punished by the troubles of old age and the trees they cut for cash. Some, like Arn Peeples (William H. Macy), die when branches fall on them. Others, like Billy (John Diehl), start to lose their memories as they slowly head towards oblivion.
Robert is not shielded from these punishments. His hermetically sealed bubble bursts; his safe haven is destroyed by the wrath of nature. Robert's house, the whole area in fact, is consumed by fire, and as a result, he loses his wife and his daughter. Are they dead? In a dreamlike sequence, Gladys reveals to Robert that she died while escaping from fire, but their daughter might still be alive somewhere. Robert does come across an unconscious young girl later, though, whether she is actually his child or not is something that's never explained to us, as well as to Robert. As the character grows older, he begins to resemble Arn and Billy in their inner loneliness. If Arn fails to detonate explosives on his first try, Robert fails to start a chainsaw later.
Bentley films this adaptation of Denis Johnson's novella with a style reminiscent of Terrence Malick's visuals. But Mallick's images have a metaphysical texture. They are dreamy, abstract, liberated. The images in Train Dreams are pretty and formal. They aren't emotionally expressive; they are calm, competently composed, and tender. This is why Train Dreams often gets stuck on its single melancholic note, and during those moments, it almost becomes static and humdrum. We spend so much time in the woods with Robert that when we see buildings, TVs, and shops, we experience a temporary mental dislocation. Robert watches a man in space and sees a photograph of the Earth on television. I wish Bentley had allowed the character's personal thoughts to run wild here, rather than continuing to restrict them to a melodramatic pitch, creating a homogeneous mix of emotions. Nonetheless, whatever flaws Train Dreams has, Bentley clears them away with a wistful gale.
As Robert flies in the sky on an airplane, the pilot tells him to hold on to something tight. When the plane begins to lurch from side to side, Robert grips the armrests and his mind floods with memories of his life. This scene reminded me of Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck. There, Charles Krantz stumbles upon a drummer on the street, remembers an old memory, and begins to dance. Flanagan, though, deployed those memories like a teaser for the third act. Bentley, on the other hand, successfully connects the images to Robert's personal experience. Was Robert punished for helping kill that Chinese man? Was he punished by nature for his actions? Did that Chinese man curse Robert? Maybe. Maybe not. What Robert finally realizes, and what Train Dreams ultimately suggests, is that everything and everyone on this Earth is randomly connected to each other. Suspended in the air and in the plane's swirling motion, Robert finds meaning in chaos—he feels connected.
Final Score- [7/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times