There is a deceptive gentleness in Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams, a delicate drama about love, grief and man’s search for meaning that spans through generations. Set at the turn of the 20th century in America, the film follows the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a stoic logger and train laborer trying to live a quiet as against the rapid change of the industrial landscape and progress of technology.
Train Dreams allows us to ride along Robert’s journey in life, witnessing his ambitions, dreams and struggles, from falling in love and starting a family with Gladys (Felicity Jones) to experiencing devastating hardships that shatter his perceptions of the world. Early in his career, he witnesses his Chinese colleague get murdered by white men for no clear reason. That key moment would haunt Robert for the rest of his life, and he believes his inaction as a big reason for the tragedies that he would face later on.
The film works on the theme that life is both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. That balance is further reinforced through the film’s breathtaking visuals thanks to cinematographer Adolpho Veloso. Bentley calmly walks the fine line between nature’s beauty and brutality. On one hand, Train Dreams is littered with gorgeous shots of American forests, and on the other, those same century-old towering trees are the ones that have crashed Robert’s dreams.
Edgerton gives the best performance of his career, portraying Robert across different stages of his life simply through the brilliant use of body language and nuanced facial expressions, with the help of Will Patton’s eloquent narration. The rest of the cast deliver strong performances as well for the limited time they had on screen. It’s amazing how the characters of Arn Peeples (William H. Macy), Claire Thompson (Kerry Condon) and all the others who Robert meets feel like real, tangible people with full interesting lives just by the stories they tell.
There’s one line in Train Dreams that I believe perfectly sums up the film’s theme, “A dead tree is as important as the living one.” Indeed life can be cruel, but there’s also so much beauty around us. You have to take the good with the bad, because you can’t really appreciate the one without the other. In that respect, Train Dreams is a quiet meditation of the joys and aches of our lives. And we may only truly understand the meaning of it all when time has already passed us by.
Rating:
The Talking Screen 