Mum's Monday: The Girl on the Train

When I first started watching this film, it just looks like a woman commuting to work in New York, drinking water from a children’s travel cup, watching the people who live in the houses beside the track and day-dreaming their lives as she passes. This is not uncommon, as I have done something similar, I have passed houses whilst being on a train, wondering who lives in them and about their lives. However, as the film continued, it is not all it first seems. At the beginning it appears to be a simple concept – you get what you see – but as it progresses, it delves deeper into everyone’s lives, until revealing the twist at the end.

Rachel (Emily Blunt) is an alcoholic and her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux) lives with Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) – who he had an affair with whilst being with Rachel – and Tom and Anna’s baby daughter in one of the houses. Two doors down lives the couple’s nanny, Megan (Haley Bennett). This is unknown to Rachel, who she is watching and assigning names to her, thinking she has the perfect life, husband and everything Rachel lost, including her job. She spends her days traveling on the train due to her alcoholism which started after not being able to have a baby. Or so we and Rachel think. Life is not always greener on the other side though.

In a flashback to when Tom and Rachel were married, they are told that to have a baby they could have another IVF treatment, which they cannot then afford at that time. This made me want to rant about NHS cuts over here in England and how a couple not being able to have a baby can affect and ruin their lives; that it can affect the woman who wants to be mum, this film could affect the man to, which is cleverly explained throughout the film. This film highlights that sometimes we forget the men’s side of things. However, we discover that despite them both being affected, it isn’t an excuse for what Tom does.

Then the film flipped my opinion from to wanting to rant over NHS IVF affecting women to realising that Rachel’s life was being manipulated by her husband, and how he was projecting his anger at her for not being able to have a baby without help. It sets up a question on whether he was angry because of being unable to have a baby, or it was just him? At the end, we’re given that answer: Tom is still a menace even after having a baby with Anna.

Rachel sees, who we now know as Megan, having therapy for her not so perfect life, being comforted by her Doctor, Kamal Abdic (Edgar Ramirez). Rachel jumps to the wrong conclusion by believing she is having an affair with her Doctor and is in despair because the projected perfect life she has been day-dreaming about, has come crashing down. Rachel, being under the influence of drink, gets off the train to confront Megan. Is she interfering? Or is she just helping? her judgement is certainly muddled at that time. The next morning, she wakes up covered in blood and Megan has disappeared.

Rachel then questions her actions and her sanity, making her, and everyone else involved, think she is a suspect, and that’s not helped by her telling Detective Riley (Allison Janney) that she saw Megan with her doctor on her balcony and the detective is overly harsh with her and dismisses her, but, helped by Megan’s husband, Scott (Luke Evans) they do eventually take him in for questioning.  Then she sees Tom’s ex-boss’s wife, Martha (Lisa Kudrow), on the train and finds out that when she was drunk and couldn’t remember her actions, Tom was telling her false information. This lead to her picking herself up and gathering her thoughts together. Now stronger and knowing that she can still be in control, she goes to the tunnel bridge where she last saw Megan and remembers what happens and why. Rachel was lucky as her interference did help get justice for Megan but there is still a fine line between helping and sticking your nose in when you shouldn’t. To help with closure, Rachel goes to the scene of the crime to see what happened, who did it, and why – this is one of the few places where the it’s gruesome, but they don’t last for long.

Emily Blunt plays the part perfectly, and the other actors act/revolve around her are also realistic and excellent performances, especially when reacting to her being drunk. The make up for this film is also realistic the alcoholic look and even down to Rachel’s dirty fingernails. This film has been very well made and Rachel’s transformation at the end made me say “WOW!”