TRAIN DREAMS (2025)

A giant tree slowly falls during the opening of Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams and lands with a thud. Instead of a conventional shot of a falling tree, it’s the steady object in the scene with the rest of the world passing by until it arrives on the earth in thunderous form. Perhaps it’s a foreshadowing metaphor for the story that is about to follow, or a reminder to each person watching that they themselves are currently at some point on that tragic but beautiful plunge towards the dirt.

Much of the film is laid out in this same manner, allowing its audience to watch and follow the story while also leaving an opening for an artist’s eye to interpret however they please. The story follows the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger in early-20th-century United States. His work keeps him away from home for long stretches of time, but as the narrator informs, he’s a man without direction or purpose. Those long stretches away are insignificant until one of the down periods when he meets Gladys (Felicity Jones) at a church service.

The couple fall in love quickly and are plotting their future home with stones in no time. After another long work stint he returns home to meet his newborn baby. The time spent with her reveals a much softer side of the otherwise rugged but quiet individual. He adapts to his role as a father naturally and beautifully. The work stretches become harder on each of them. In a scene that is likely familiar to many families even today, they brainstorm ways to change their lives in order to keep Robert with his family. They plan and dream of their future together as a family.

That life is but a snapshot of the film before tragedy strikes and everything changes. The rest of the film shows Grainier struggling and coping, trying to make it through life.

Where the film makes its most poignant impact is in its portrayal of a man living during a period that cinema often insists should be rough and rugged. The kind of man who buries his emotions and refuses to show an ounce of humility. Train Dreams breaks that trend, unafraid to show a man at his weakest and most vulnerable. Grainier longs for his family. He grieves. He feels guilt for bearing witness to the atrocities that were common in that time period and doing nothing to stop them. That kind of regret is not uncommon for a decent person living at any point in history. The feeling of helplessly watching evil happen around you—and turning a blind eye, even when you couldn’t have changed anything—leaves a weight to carry for anyone with a heart.

Train Dreams is based on a 2011 novella by Denis Johnson, and the film strays a bit in how it presents the Grainier character. He comes across as more positive and innocent here, whereas the novella places more weight on the guilt he carries. The film is also told in a linear fashion, while the novella is more abstract in its structure. What the adaptation does capture well is a man plagued by loss and surrounded by uncertainty. As Grainier works through this on screen, the audience experiences those same emotions alongside him. A powerful tool Bentley uses is allowing viewers to see themselves in the character. It’s never explicitly stated how much Grainier accepts the fate he’s been dealt. A hopeful viewer might project that sense of hope onto him, while a more grounded one might see him as accepting the more likely outcome while keeping a quieter sense of hope alive. The film is careful to let those interpretations co-exist and lets the audience find their own reading at their own pace.

With so much of the film dealing in regret, there’s a fitting irony in the regretfulness of this being a Netflix release. The majority of its audience will never get to experience Train Dreams on a theatre screen. While watching, it becomes overwhelmingly evident that the visuals were meant for that environment. There’s a certain epicness to many scenes, and on a television screen you can feel yourself not getting the full effect of them. The shot composition of nearly every scene is exquisite. The photos spliced into this article can stand for that, but it should be noted that nearly every frame of the film could have been captured and served the same purpose. That is also not unlike the dialogue, which is beautifully artistic on its own. Much of that comes through in the film’s narration, beautifully spoken by Will Patton (Remember the Titans).

Many aspects of the film remind of the masterful filmmaking style of Terrence Malick. Through the use of stillness, large landscapes, quiet scenes, and the soundtrack of the outdoors, Malick has an innate talent for picking the audience up and inserting them right into the scene. It almost feels like you are experiencing the film instead of watching it. There’s a lot of that going on here. Bentley leans into long stretches where the camera does nothing more than observe the beauty in a world that is full of pain. Like Malick’s best work, the film uses silence and images, and trusts the audience to feel something without being told exactly what that something should be.

One notable criticism might be the near-constant use of flashbacks, often spliced into quiet scenes representing both the memories Grainier is holding on to and the horrors he has fabricated to fill in the gaps. For a film just over 100 minutes, referring back to parts of itself the audience has only recently seen is a risky move. While it does risk redundancy, those small excerpts ultimately serve a purpose. In a film about one man’s journey, these memories are what he carries, and they’re all he has to take with him in the end.

The backbone of it all is the performance by Joel Edgerton. He’s a soft-spoken man and one of few words, so his actions and presence carry much of the acting weight. Much of the performance seems to be conveyed in his eyes. Happiness, pain, sorrow, confusion, and hopefulness are all emotions that can be told mostly in close-up shots of his face. He also conveys a warm-hearted tenderness in the time spent with those he loves.

Another highlight is a brief encounter with Arn Peeples (William H. Macy). Macy is nearly unrecognisable at first. His voice and his accent are unlike any performance he’s given. This would easily be among his best work if it weren’t for its brevity. The same could be said of Felicity Jones. A standout in The Brutalist (2024), her performance here, while as charming as one might expect of her, just doesn’t provide her with the material or length to make it into something more memorable.

In a later scene, he meets the widow Claire Thompson (Kerry Condon), and they briefly confide in each other. Edgerton is portraying a sense of regret as he opens up to her, and that is reiterated through the dialogue as he asks her if that makes him sound crazy. It references a time when showing raw emotion for a man was considered weak, when it should be a necessary part of the grieving process.

In the end, Train Dreams becomes a film about the things we carry: grief, guilt, hope, and the memories that refuse to fade. Bentley leans into the quiet spaces of Grainier’s life and finds something honest there; something that doesn’tneed to be explained to be felt. It’s a film that sits with you, much like the images that fill it, and leaves an impression long after the tree has finally fallen.

USA| 2025 | 102 MINUTES | 1.43:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Clint Bentley.
writers: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar (based on the novella by Denis Johnson.)
starring: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, William H. Macy & Will Patton.