This book was read during our
book club. For whatever reason, perhaps I was gun shy after reading Gone Girl
and hating it, I skipped. If you didn’t read the book, I don’t think you’re
missing too much, however you won’t get all the nuances of the characters. In a
way, this story is about a reformed drunk, but that’s cutting a lot of other
stuff out. If you did read the book, I’m told the story mostly sticks to what
happens, yet leaves a lot of details out, as per usual. This could devolve into
a rant about how Hollywood ruins everything it touches, but that would require
more than one blog post.
The movie begins with Emily Blunt
riding the train to and from NYC (the book was set in London, but they moved it
because: Hollywood knows best). Rachel (Blunt’s character) sees this girl out
the window of the train and her imagination runs wild, concocting a story for
her that is based partially on a reality that for reasons we sort of learn
later, she can’t remember. The girl goes missing and Rachel creates an entire
narrative about what might have happened. Her drunkenness creates obvious
issues and the cops begin to think she’s involved.
Part of the frustration of this
movie, and Gone Girl, is that it uses the unreliable narrator. We, as the
audience, can’t trust the narrative perspective to be accurate or truthful. I’ve
read books that execute this well, in a movie format, I’m not sure I like the
effect. There are a lot of scenes that are disjointed or hazy, with Blunt
stumbling through dialogue with other characters as if it is the first time
they’ve spoken about a particular topic. I know I’m not distilling this very
well, but that is a direct reflection of the movie, which was executed somewhat
poorly.
Emily Blunt is a great actress.
There is little she can’t do well, but if the direction and story are so
consumed with holding onto a surprise ending, then that becomes the focus, as
it did in this movie. This isn’t a horror movie, it is a mystery. Yes, at one
point we do wonder if Blunt killed the girl, but that becomes less and less
likely. The twists and turns felt more annoying than intriguing. I don’t know
if I just found everyone unlikeable, but the movie was meh, at best. I saw it
for $6 and I wouldn’t do that again. As for my Hina test: there were only white people in this movie. Even though the movie centered around a woman, she was a bedraggled, weak character throughout. In no way did this movie represent diversity or women in a positive or fair way.
