Our take
Based on the 2011 novella of the same name, Train Dreams depicts the life of Robert Grainier in the first half of the 20th century. It’s a pretty ordinary life. Born without parents, and not quite sociable, Grainier lives a lonely existence, a loneliness that’s interrupted occasionally by talks with his fellow co-workers and the limited time he gets with his family. However, that doesn’t mean it’s boring. Joel Edgerton delivers one of his best performances that subtly depicts his inner world, while writer-director Clint Bentley pairs Grainier’s day-to-day with surreal dreams, feverish imaginings that captures Grainier’s deepest hopes for the people he’s lost. Train Dreams depicts an ordinary life with extraordinary sensitivity.
What it won
Nat. Board of Review
2 wins
The story
A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.
Elsewhere
"Even its lapses and dodges have the effect of only strengthening my admiration for Edgerton, whose grizzled magnetism has seldom been more affecting."
— Justin Chang
"Clint Bentley and co-writer Greg Kwedar capture the grandeur, tragedy and intimacy of Johnson’s work without slipping into nostalgia for an idealised kind of West inhabited by John Wayne."
— Laura Venning
Who picked it
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
