Movies: The Girl on the Train

It seems like unreliable narrators and whole casts of unlikable characters are the in thing these days.

I haven't read the book. Maybe it's better? But I really disliked the Gone Girl book and still thought the movie was okay . . . So if I didn't like this movie, is the book worse? Or is this one just the flip of Gone Girl? Is it because David Fincher directed Gone Girl and he's plain awesome? I don't think I've seen anything Tate Taylor has done (didn't see The Help but loved that book, so . . .) I guess what I'm saying, not very well, is that I have to wonder how much of this is the source material and how much of it is the filter that is the director.

Emily Blunt slurs her way through this film as alcoholic Rachel whose husband Tom left her for Anna. Rachel and Tom suffered through infertility, but Anna promptly gives Tom a baby daughter. Rachel torments herself by riding the train past her old house each day, catching glimpses of Tom's and Anna's life, the life that should have been hers. Two doors down from her old house, too, there is another woman living a seemingly perfect life. Rachel makes up stories about who this woman is and what her life might be like. Then she flips the fuck out when she sees this woman kissing a man who is definitely not her partner/husband. When the woman—whose name is Megan—goes missing, Rachel tries to "help" by bringing up what she saw to the police and Megan's husband Scott. Unfortunately, because Rachel is constantly soused, no one believes her and they even suspect she may have done it. And since Rachel blacks out a lot and can't remember things, she wonders if she did something to Megan too. But of course we all know better because then there isn't really a story.

Not much suspense or many thrills in this supposed "suspense thriller." Again, maybe the book did it better. We know we can't trust Rachel's memories/flashbacks. So there's no surprise when she unravels things and discovers she was wrong about what she remembered. The whole thing has a Gaslight vibe that could have been really cool if played up differently. As it was, it was just kind of like ::shrug::