Netflix has outdone itself this time. One of the streamer’s newest original films, based on the novella by Denis Johnson, has already obtained an almost perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, launching it directly to the top of the Top 10 Streaming list for the week. It’s a heart-wrenching and emotionally brutal film, and one of Joel Edgerton’s best performances to date, straddling the line between something that feels like a fever dream and a work of art.  

Train Dreams centers around a man named Robert Grainier (Edgerton) and his life during early 20th-century America, as the world changes from rugged and wild to something more polished—at least on the surface. Dealing with the loss of his parents, Robert grows up deep in the Pacific Northwest, taking work on the railroad—work that will eventually change him to an almost unrecognizable degree as he watches men die, and be ruthlessly killed, along the tracks. He meets a young woman named Gladys, played by Felicity Jones, and the two marry, have a daughter, and build a home amongst the pines. As Robert’s work continues to take him farther and farther from home, tragedy strikes his family, leaving him struggling to cope. “The biblical bleakness gets under your skin, as does Edgerton’s powerful, tactile performance,” says Chuck Bowen of Style Weekly. 

Train Dreams Pulls Off Tragedy In A Beautifully Haunting Way

Some critics struggled with the bleakness of the film, feeling that it was repetitive and didn’t lend to a full story, with Al Alexander of Movies Thru The Spectrum saying, “Who wants to lay witness to our man of perpetual sorrow for 90-plus minutes? Granted, Edgerton’s portrayal is fantastic, as is the gorgeous Great Northwest scenery. But you can only absorb so much before repetition and boredom settle in.” But the bleakness isn’t the main point of the film, nor is the element of “perpetual sorrow.” At its heart, Train Dreams is about living beyond those things and seeking peace in a world that seems ready at all turns to take that from you—themes are the opposite of “boring.”

Robert Granier is no one special, with barely a thing to his name aside from the family and home he builds alongside Gladys, and yet he contains the multitudes of the human condition, just like the rest of us. While not everyone endures the same tragedies that befall him, there’s something relatable in almost every element of his story—and his reactions to what he goes through. Set against the lush backdrop of the Pacific Northwest at a time when it was more wild than anything else, Train Dreams is a film that will transport you back in time, for better or worse. 

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