If there’s one more movie I recommend seeking out before the year ends, it’s Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams. The film was quietly dropped on Netflix last month and could easily slip by without notice. Unexpectedly, however, Train Dreams made a huge impact on me, and in its simplicity, there is a unique beauty.
The plot of Train Dreams is simple: more in the style of a novel like Stoner than any film in recent memory, a narrator recounts the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger constructing railways in the early 20th century. Bentley paints a portrait of an unremarkable life in turn-of-the-century America, one that would be overlooked and hardly committed to history. The narrator remarks, at one point, that none of Grainier’s fellow loggers would be remembered, but that in their work on the Spokane International Railway, they would have left their mark on history — until, a few decades later, a newer railway is built and their work becomes obsolete.
In Train Dreams, however, Grainier’s simple, unremarkable life becomes a thing of beauty and grandeur. In telling a story that is so insular and literary in nature (it is, after all, adapted from Denis Johnson’s novella of the same name), Train Dreams easily justifies its existence as a film through some of the most beautiful cinematography of the year. Grainier is sometimes surrounded by lush forests and greenery, and at other times he is swallowed by darkness, lit only by a flickering fire. Later in life, we find him in the sleek 1960s, an old-fashioned man against a world that’s moved on without him. Each shot in Train Dreams is stunning, turning Grainier’s life into a series of paintings that give importance to a life otherwise forgotten.
Beyond the technical aspects of Train Dreams, what I found most compelling about Grainier’s life was his strong character. Grainier does not change much over the course of the film: he’s a good man, from beginning to end. The story is made up of the challenges and losses that Grainier endures throughout his life, and although he becomes increasingly isolated from society, he never loses his good nature. Train Dreams begins with perhaps the most impactful event in Grainier’s life — on a logging job early in his career, his Chinese coworker is taken by a group of white men, and Grainier is unable to stop them. Grainier blames himself for the loss of this unnamed man and is haunted by visions of him for the rest of his life. Grainier constantly deals with loss and hardship, and blames himself for many of these events, but never takes it out on the world around him. I found it hard not to root for a man so dedicated to doing good despite the hand the world has dealt him, propelled by Joel Edgerton’s fantastic performance. Grainier is a kind man, a good husband and father and a friend to everyone he meets. Despite the difficulties of life, he never loses sight of who he is.
Much like its protagonist, Train Dreams is a quiet little film that could be easily missed. It’s also one of the most moving films of the year and has impacted me much more than I expected. In the simplicity of Train Dreams, we’re reminded of all of the lives lived long before us, people who have lived and died without any remembrance. In one scene, Kerry Condon’s Claire Thompson comments on the incredible lifespan of Earth and how many things the world must have seen. I was incredibly moved by the reminder that lives like Grainier’s, quiet and unremembered by history, have left their mark on the world. Despite Netflix’s lack of promotion, I feel strongly that Train Dreams should certainly not go unseen and unremembered. Among the bigger releases this holiday season, carve out the time to spend two hours in Grainier’s world.
Nicholas York is a junior in the School of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at nay22@cornell.edu.
‘Projections’ is a column focused on reviewing recent film releases.
