Movie · 2016 · Crime, Mystery, Thriller · 1h 52m · R · English
Curator score: 1.7/10 (438.1K ratings)
What you see can hurt you.
Overview
Rachel Watson, devastated by her recent divorce, spends her daily commute fantasizing about the seemingly perfect couple who live in a house that her train passes every day, until one morning she sees something shocking happen there and becomes entangled in the mystery that unfolds.
Ratings
Curator score: 1.7/10
IMDb: 6.5/10
Letterboxd: 2.96/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 44%
Metacritic: 48
TMDB: 6.4/10
Director
Tate Taylor
Production
Reliance Entertainment, DreamWorks Pictures, Marc Platt Productions
Cast
Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Luke Evans, Justin Theroux, Allison Janney, Lisa Kudrow, Laura Prepon, Edgar Ramírez, Darren Goldstein, Cleta Elaine Ellington, Lana Young, Rachel Christopher, Fernando Medina, Gregory Morley, Mac Tavares, John Norris, Nathan Shapiro, Tamiel Paynes, Peter Mayer-Klepchick
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A glossy, soapy thriller with a strong central performance and a reliably twisty setup, but it softens the nastier edges that make the best domestic mysteries sting. It works best as a mood piece and a showcase for Emily Blunt rather than as a truly sharp psychological thriller.
Best for
Viewers who like unreliable narrators and fractured-puzzle mysteries
Fans of suburban noir and melodramatic crime stories
Anyone mainly interested in a committed lead performance
People in the mood for a pulpy, rainy-day thriller
Skip if
You want the bite, irony, or formal precision of top-tier thrillers
You are looking for a genuinely shocking or especially intricate mystery
You dislike soap-opera plotting or heavy-handed trauma backstory
You want a film that fully lives up to its prestige-thriller ambitions
Overview
The Girl on the Train is built on a very familiar engine: a damaged protagonist, a suspicious domestic tableau, and a mystery that keeps recontextualizing what you think you know. The setup is effective, and the film has enough momentum to keep the train moving even when the script leans hard on coincidence and familiar thriller beats.
Worth noting
What gives it life is Emily Blunt, who makes Rachel feel bruised, volatile, and painfully human even when the movie around her is more mechanical than mysterious. The supporting cast helps, too, especially in the way the film turns ordinary suburban spaces into sites of resentment, secrecy, and projection.
Bottom line
Still, the movie never quite becomes as sharp or as nasty as it wants to be. It borrows the shape of a better, more subversive thriller, but settles for something more conventional and less psychologically daring. As a result, it’s watchable and occasionally gripping, but more effective as a star vehicle than as a standout mystery.
Top Letterboxd reviews
cathy (3★) · 1887 likes
wow emily's life really went off the rails after she didn't get to go on the paris trip
zee (2★) · 1279 likes
the girl sure was...on the train
isabelle ☆ (3★) · 1068 likes
all i got from this movie is that emily blunt is a legend and men are terrible
davidehrlich (1.5★) · 978 likes
Imagine if “Gone Girl” had been developed as a toothless network television pilot — if it had been stripped of its subversive approach to gender dynamics, bludgeoned free of its sadistic gallows humor and shot like a very special episode of “NCIS: Suburbia.” Imagine if it hadn’t been directed by a filmmaker who’s drawn to trash the way that most people are to perfume, someone who genuinely believes you can learn as much about marriage and misogyny from the novels… more Imagine if “Gone Girl” had been developed as a toothless network television pilot — if it had been stripped of its subversive approach to gender dynamics, bludgeoned free of its sadistic gallows humor and shot like a very special episode of “NCIS: Suburbia.” Imagine if it hadn’t been directed by a filmmaker who’s drawn to trash the way that most people are to perfume, someone who genuinely believes you can learn as much about marriage and misogyny from the novels… more
Marian (3.5★) · 969 likes
listen i love you emily blunt. i would die for you. but please put on some chapstick... I'm so concerned
2013 · Thriller, Crime, Drama · 1h 46m · R · Curator 8.8/10 (3.3K ratings) · Where to watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Netflix Standard with Ads, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A sleek psychological thriller that keeps shifting power and perspective while staying cool, controlled, and morally slippery.