4 out of 5

Directed by: Clint Bentley

A gorgeous meditation on a life, with that specificity somewhat preventing the film from making a larger impact. But its precise visual storytelling, and fade-in-fade-out cast of characters, makes for a stunningly affecting journey, capable of hitting home whether or not Robert Grainier’s (Joel Edgerton) love and losses are experiences to which you can relate.

Train Dreams mostly linearly tracks us through Grainer’s life as a lumberman, crossing the century divide from the late 1800s into the 1900s, and experiencing multiple leaps in technology – but from afar, living in a cabin in the woods, and feeling quite alien not only to such changes, but maybe even to his fellow man.

A wife (Felicity Jones) and a child bring a connection, but Robert’s tale is not without tragedy, and he has to navigate later stages of his life without much mooring. But director / co-writer Clint Bentley’s film is not necessarily about that tragedy; Grainer is haunted by some related dreams, but they are dreams of impacts, or lack of impacts; he often just sits and listens, or sits and stares, and absorbs the world, and wonders about it, sometimes cyclically, and his dreams are a reflection of that.

We are narrated to by Will Patton, and though his voice is a comfort, and can soothe connections between quieter moments, it feels like a nod moreso to the source material – Denis Johnson’s novella – than something that was necessary for Bentley’s and co-writer’s Greg Kwedar’s adaptation of it. This is part of the specificity mentioned: Train Dreams doesn’t require a narrator to be understood; Edgerton communicates so, so much through his scrunched brow or beleaguered looks, with additional resonance added from gorgeous production design, and especially the careful framing and coloring / lighting and pacing in tandem with d.p. Adolpho Veloso and editor Parker Laramie. And besides this, it is a surface level telling that you’re meant to draw your own feelings from; Patton’s somewhat redundant (if, again, charming) recitation of things we can see does nothing except for storybook elements that might have felt more “real” otherwise.

But that subtle note aside, the film really is a marvel, moving briskly despite a languid demeanor, Bryce Dessner’s lovely score trickling joy and humor into what could have been more somber. A cast of very recognizable cameos (William H. Macy; Clifton Collins Jr.) sink into their roles and add color to the world instead of distracting; Edgerton does what he does – he’s an excellent everyman, but in a flexible way that can be leveraged for any genre – though antes up even further, making multiple decades of this character’s life feel lived in, each step of the way. While I think there’s a more enduring version of this story, that tries to deepen its messaging, making it somewhat more general and universal also guarantees that almost anyone can take something away from the movie.