Train Dreams Review

Inspired by the writing of Denis Johnson, director Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams is an ode to a particular lived experience in the early 20th century. This turns out to be a rich landscape for cinematic treatment, especially given the film’s setting in the wilds of America’s Pacific Northwest. Though it sometimes strains for profundity, there’s a simple power to Bentley’s evocation of a time and place as it changes.

Narrated by the welcome voice of Will Patton, Train Dreams introduces us to Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton, stolid yet affecting), a labourer of little renown. His life is his own, but rootless; it’s his settling down with Gladys (Felicity Jones) that sets the film’s narrative in motion, giving Robert something to lose—and find. Co-written with Greg Kwedar, Bentley hews close to this singular perspective, taking flight only to visualize the dreams of the film’s title, which haunt Robert. As heavily foreshadowed, there’s tragedy here, a dramatic throughline tying together Robert’s work and familial responsibilities. The pathos we’re meant to feel, however, is detached. The film’s truest pleasures instead lie in its plain-spoken existential passages (aided by William H. Macy), which regard nature, one’s place in it, and the world’s gradual transformation after the fact. With its austere touches and floating camera, Bentley’s work owes a clear (maybe too obvious) debt of gratitude to Terrence Malick; he also relies on the literal presence of Johnson, whose writing seems to justify the tone of the film, for better or worse.

Though exceedingly beautiful, Train Dreams is also quite basic in its conclusions, and perhaps too insistent on them. It’s best just to cherish the film’s cinematic time-travelling efforts, rather than look for anything too revelatory. In this, Bentley succeeds in taking us along for a singular journey; we grow to care about where this one man will end up.