Like a woman trying too hard to appear drunk in public, Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) stumbles through the early scenes of The Girl on the Train like she's auditioning for the lead role in The Dresser. After Rachel's husband leaves her due to her alcoholism and inability to bear him children, he marries Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), only to cheat on her with a sexy nymphomaniac of a babysitter, Megan (Haley Bennett). When Megan turns up murdered, the shadow of doubt falls on the recovering alcoholic heroine, and the twists and turns that are eventually exposed are almost laughable (particularly the climax, which is over-the-top in its lack of suspense). The movie badly wants to be Hitchcockian, incorporating elements of Strangers on a Train and Vertigo, but without evoking the excitement of either. The acting and writing are more reminiscent of straight-to-Cinemax fare, where the soft-core eroticism is more impactful than the predictable whodunit, and nearly everyone in the movie seems to be miscast in some way. The Girl on the Train is a thriller without thrills, a movie that produces more boredom than Sunday school, and just may become a cure for insomnia for future generations.
C-
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