I’m a sucker for Joel Edgerton movies. I’ll give any movie that he’s in a chance. I first learned of him when I saw the vastly underrated Warrior. This film follows a fairly predictable sports-drama formula. Still, for me, it was elevated to a Top 100 all-time movie by the performances of Edgerton, Tom Hardy, and Nick Nolte. Edgerton continued to impress with The Gift, a film that he both starred in and directed. Since then, he’s had memorable performances in movies that critics received well, but didn’t do well at the box office. Loving, Midnight Special, The Green Knight, It Comes At Night, and Boy Erased all earned Rotten Tomatoes critics’ scores of >80% fresh, yet each failed to reach $20 million at the box office. While I didn’t particularly care for any of those five movies, Edgerton continued to impress.
When I read the early reviews of Clint Bentley’s (Sing Sing, Jockey) Train Dreams, calling Edgerton’s performance one of the best of his career, I knew I would see it as soon as I could. It’s a captivating film, one that deserved a wide-release theatrical run, rather than the limited one it received before Netflix secured its naming rights. I would have loved to have seen it on the big screen.
Edgerton has a gift for bringing a tough-looking tenderness to many of his roles. His performance as Robert Grainier, a mild-mannered, mind-your-own-business railroad day laborer in the early 20th-century Pacific Northwest, who loses everything and still searches for meaning and purpose in life, is the best of his career.
We spend our time with Robert from the film’s inception. His job with a railroad company has him spending his days sawing trees and laying new tracks into the earth, including a breathtaking, towering stanchion bridge that spans a wide, rocky gorge. We learn about the give-and-take of the profession. Knocking down the trees that have lived for centuries as a means of making the world smaller by making it easier to connect people from all over the country serves as a metaphor for the erasure of memory. When creating a new identity, we wipe away the history that previously existed.
While his work will benefit tens, if not hundreds of thousands, for decades to come, it’s just a job to Robert. He spends his leisure time searching for greater meaning, and finds it during one of his breaks from the tracks when he meets and quickly falls in love with Gladys (Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything, The Brutalist). The two are soon mapping out their future home and dreaming of a family. Both plans come to fruition. Robert and Gladys build their perfect home. Their daughter Kate helps them fill it with love and joy.
When tragedy strikes while Robert is working on an assignment, a massive wildfire sweeps through the valley where his home resides. He returns home to find nothing but rubble and ash. A frantic and long search does not yield Gladys or Kate. Is his family dead, or are they merely lost in the vast wilderness? Robert is left in a state of suspended grief, and we are there to witness it all. He constructs a new cabin on the very same ground, becoming a recluse when he isn’t working.
The remainder of the film is Robert’s metamorphosis, as he remembers what he had, ponders what could have been, and tries to make sense of everything in between, forging on in the present while staying present in each moment. It’s a very introspective study of how we respond when we hit rock bottom or how we view the world differently when we no longer feel connected with it.
Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 8.75/10
Cinematography 9.75/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 8/10
Universal Relevance 8.5/10
86.5%
B+
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