Girl on the Train film fails to outdo book

They always say the book is better than the movie, and sadly that holds true for the much anticipated The Girl on the Train.

While reading the novel by Paula Hawkins in Delhi this summer, I found myself ignoring my 6 a.m. alarm and staying up until 3 a.m., turning page after page. I even read it during the hours in my internship when I found myself idle, fearful that my boss would disapprove. Luckily for me my boss loved the book as much as I did, and I wound up finishing the almost 400-page novel in just three days.

The film is the latest for Emily Blunt who previously starred in blockbuster Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise and is currently working on two animated features aimed towards younger audiences (Animal Crackers and My Little Pony: The Move). There have also been rumors that she’ll be reprising the role of Kate Macer in a sequel to the critically-acclaimed Sicario.

In the novel, Paula Hawkins tells the riveting story of Rachel Watson, a divorced alcoholic who is unable to move on from the past. Every morning she rides the train into London, passing by not only her own house — the house her ex-husband, Tom Watson, now lives in with his new wife and daughter — but also the house of a couple, Megan and Scott Hipwell, that Rachel has been observing. The couple is everything Rachel wants in a marriage because they just seem so happy together — from afar. Things take a turn for the worse when Megan is murdered, and Rachel, unable to remember the events surrounding the murder, believes she could have committed the crime. She goes on a quest to find out more, revealing many facets of her own past along the way.

It sounds like a great book right? Guess what, it is. I mean The New York Times did list it in the top five on their Fiction Best Sellers 2015 list. When I heard they were making a movie of the book, I was curious about how they would structure it.

The book jumps not only between different time periods, but also between the perspectives of different characters. I was sure the director would mess it up somehow, and he did. Though the movie attempted to follow the format of the books, I’m not sure whether the jumps between timelines would have made sense to those who hadn’t seen the movie.

Furthermore, I couldn’t understand why they bothered to change the setting from the English suburbs to New York. Perhaps it was because they couldn’t find enough British actors? Or even American actors that could pull off an accent? However, the director, Tate Taylor, did decide to cast Emily Blunt, a British actress with a clear accent, for the lead role.

What’s better is that the scriptwriters decided to acknowledge that fact during a scene in which Blunt’s character visits dead Megan’s therapist. She points out that he has an accent, and he reciprocates by pointing out that she has one too. After this brief exchange the writing moves strictly back to the plot, without giving any explanation of why Rachel has a British accent.

The most disappointing aspect, though, for me, was the loss of the meaning behind the novel. The book by Hawkins heavily explores relationships and how they are affected by both domestic and alcohol abuse.

The movie, however, managed to fixate on the sexual aspects of the book, undoubtedly to entice viewers. Although the movie did later delve a little further into the deeper themes, it included a lot scenes that frankly did nothing to further the plot.

Hawkins uses beautiful language that painted a clear and vivid image of Rachel’s life, her pain, her regrets, her daily routine and her conversations with those around her. While watching the movie, I found myself sitting there listening to corny dialogue and watching a lot of bad acting. The only somewhat commendable performance was Blunt’s. She nailed the raccoon-eyed look, almost as well as she nailed the slurred speech of an inebriated woman.

While many reviewers have compared this to Gone Girl, and yes they are similar in that they both have a lot of sex and violence, I think the comparison should rather be between Girl On the Train’s book and its film counterpart. Hawkins’ novel accomplished much that the movie did not capture.