Extremely popular thrillers are generally dumber than the actual good ones. Going by the popularity of its source material, I did have my inhibitions on how this might be. There is a minor but there is a chance of having the material improvised when transforming it on to the big screen, I had counted on it - How wrong was I? Apart from a predictably superlative performance by Emily Blunt, everything else just falls apart.
Rachel (Emily Blunt) is a drunk divorced woman living in a friend's apartment and takes a train for work every day. Her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux) who cheated on her, currently lives with his present wife and a newly born in the same house which Rachel and Tom bought together. As the house is by the rail tracks which she passes by on her train commute every day, she gets obsessed by a couple who stays a couple of houses further from her house - names them Jess (Haley Bennett) and Jason (Luke Evans) in her head and wonder about their lives. One day she finds Jess intimate with someone who is not Jason, being in a heavily inebriated condition she impulsively wants to confront Jess and gets off the train. She wakes up the next morning bruised and blacked out of previous night's memory. Megan (Jess in her head) is missing and it is all over the news...
When the book took the world by storm, it was admired for its breezy read full of twists and turns. There wasn't many who were fond of its too many gray characters or the quality of its story. Not having read the book, I will leave that observation from news articles as is. It definitely got its teaser trailer right, infusing that intrigue in you with all the mystery, suspense and modern story- telling. The movie hardly had anything more to offer from its teaser as it looked like it was just stretched out from it. Not every single person you meet in life could be as twisted as in Paula Hawkins world which makes it unrelatable. The plot twists are sometimes ridiculous and the important sequences that drive the story ends up being illogical. You will know the major climax revelation from a mile away and how it eventually pans out is quite a dampener.
Something from a viewer's perspective is that you don't get a character to root for. With each character having their own misgivings, you'd rather think they are better off at where they are. Most of the actions look illogical and unbecoming of their characters especially the eventual victim and murderer. Emily Blunt has had an interesting filmography but I don't think her potential has been fully realized yet even though she got a chance to showcase her brilliance in bits, same goes in this movie too. Once you figured out the gist of the story and know where it is going, it becomes a plodding bore and a lot of time to get there. The background score didn't standout and the cinematography is just apt. When adapting from a book, the most important consideration would be to identify which section to highlight, which section to omit - as it isn't possible to carry forward in its entirety. Not having read the book, I can't comment about these choices but knowing how popular the book became - there is a chance that something went wrong in this process.
Manipulative, contrived and illogical elements fizzles out the mystery and suspense. Some good performances couldn't save it either.
Rachel (Emily Blunt) is a drunk divorced woman living in a friend's apartment and takes a train for work every day. Her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux) who cheated on her, currently lives with his present wife and a newly born in the same house which Rachel and Tom bought together. As the house is by the rail tracks which she passes by on her train commute every day, she gets obsessed by a couple who stays a couple of houses further from her house - names them Jess (Haley Bennett) and Jason (Luke Evans) in her head and wonder about their lives. One day she finds Jess intimate with someone who is not Jason, being in a heavily inebriated condition she impulsively wants to confront Jess and gets off the train. She wakes up the next morning bruised and blacked out of previous night's memory. Megan (Jess in her head) is missing and it is all over the news...
When the book took the world by storm, it was admired for its breezy read full of twists and turns. There wasn't many who were fond of its too many gray characters or the quality of its story. Not having read the book, I will leave that observation from news articles as is. It definitely got its teaser trailer right, infusing that intrigue in you with all the mystery, suspense and modern story- telling. The movie hardly had anything more to offer from its teaser as it looked like it was just stretched out from it. Not every single person you meet in life could be as twisted as in Paula Hawkins world which makes it unrelatable. The plot twists are sometimes ridiculous and the important sequences that drive the story ends up being illogical. You will know the major climax revelation from a mile away and how it eventually pans out is quite a dampener.
Something from a viewer's perspective is that you don't get a character to root for. With each character having their own misgivings, you'd rather think they are better off at where they are. Most of the actions look illogical and unbecoming of their characters especially the eventual victim and murderer. Emily Blunt has had an interesting filmography but I don't think her potential has been fully realized yet even though she got a chance to showcase her brilliance in bits, same goes in this movie too. Once you figured out the gist of the story and know where it is going, it becomes a plodding bore and a lot of time to get there. The background score didn't standout and the cinematography is just apt. When adapting from a book, the most important consideration would be to identify which section to highlight, which section to omit - as it isn't possible to carry forward in its entirety. Not having read the book, I can't comment about these choices but knowing how popular the book became - there is a chance that something went wrong in this process.
Manipulative, contrived and illogical elements fizzles out the mystery and suspense. Some good performances couldn't save it either.