A black and cursed cloud, a vector of misfortune, follows Idaho Day Laborer Robert Grainier in director Clint Bentleyelegantly crafted and reputed Denis Johnson adaptation, “Train dreams. ” Beginning with a POV shot of a felled tree dropping dead to the ground, the camera fixed on where the FIR fell, this 20th century portrait of the Pacific played much pain and suffering in the Life of Grainier, played with a hardened soul by a bearded Joel Edgerton.
Robert goes from day laborer to Spokane Railroad Logger, constantly tested by a nature that seems to have more control over human destiny than humans themselves. Co-written by Bentley with Greg Kwedar (the primary creative team behind “Sing Sing”), “Train Dreams” thrives on its philosophical explorations of the earthly randomness of events that make up a life. The effect—enhanced by skillful craftsmanship and a penchant for detail in even the most out-of-focus corners of a shot—leaves you reeling.
“Train Dreams” works from Johnson’s 116-page novella, which discursively moves through the time in which Bentley’s filmexcept prophetic visions of a fiery future, moves in a straighter line. The culmination is a biography of Robert’s adult life, beginning in the summer of 1917 in Idaho and ending in Washington in 1968, the year of Apollo 8’s orbit around the moon and back. Robert’s logging crew consists of gruff travelers who also have the stereotypical racism of working-class Americans in the middle of the century immigration wave. An incident involving a Chinese worker, in which Robert is implicated, will haunt him for the rest of his days on earth, even in supernatural form.
Robert’s life is changed by the arrival of Gladys (Felicity Jones) in it. The two fall head over heels in love, “Train Dreams” flowing through the early years together including the birth of their daughter, Kate. Even in a film where hallucinatory visions of fires attack Robert’s Dreams, another tragedy is never around the corner. The superstitious arn peepers (a hoarse tragicomic William H. Macy) also wreak havoc in a film where branches and brush often fall on people suddenly, killing them or leaving them in a stupor that will turn into eventual death.
“The world doesn’t stop needing fir,” a co-worker tells Robert after three men are killed on the job. Arn, meanwhile, is prone to engaging in existential conversations around the campfire, where Robert waxes about the “newness of the experience.” In fact, “Train Dreams” is a film that wants to put the audience directly into the novelty (and sometimes likeness) of its protagonist’s experiences, all but passing the first-person camera. When Gladys strokes Robert’s beard or runs her fingers down his back, you can almost feel it.
Bentley and cinematographer Adolpho Veloso also throw the audience into the tactile tasks and craft of logging, Robert sawing away with numb determination while forced once again to be far away from his wife and children. Robert is a man with job levels of cosmic bad luck, and the episodic revelation of misery may test some viewers — but trust me, they test Robert a lot more. Edgerton, the Australian actor most celebrated for his performance as the white plaintiff in an interracial marriage case in “Loving,” keeps his emotions close to his chest until the moment he finally breaks up. Like a scene where he cries after shooting down a buck, his life’s almost perverse adjacency to death becomes too much to bear at the sight of another fallen being.
Bentley demonstrated a talent for immersion with his 2021 Feature “Jockey,” whose star Clifton Collins Jr. bills cards in “train dreams” like a thirsty Panhandle traveler. That story of a retired horseman returning to the ring for one last championship integrated a local Vérité realism into its American Southwest fabric. You can also see the same realism on display in “Sing Sing,” where co-writers and producers Bentley and Kwedar cast an ensemble of actual formerly incarcerated men in correctional facilities, who acquire a documentary-like power. “Train Dreams” comes with the same imprimatur of reality, as the native merchant (Johnny Arnoux) whose largesse picks Robert up at one of his lowest moments.
“Train Dreams,” overall, is a lonely film, with Edgerton in every scene, the most intimate experiences of his later life often living in dreams — some characters come and go as figments of Robert’s imagination, something he often questions himself himself. Kerry Condon plays a forester named Claire with whom Robert has a platonic connection, which becomes a kind of mirror for him to finally pour out his pent-up grief after a previous large-scale tragedy. His years worth of grief is like a clogged gutter that desperately needs emptying. Speaking of which, Bentley and Team vividly construct a wildfire set that feels eerily realistic and menacing right now.
Some of the film’s introduction of midcentury technology (engines replacing steam engines, concrete and steel bridges instead of wood) is less smoothly done, but only gives the impression of surrealist circles “training dreams.” At moments it feels like the film itself is fever-dreaming, haunted by a piano, string and woodwind score by Bryce Dessner, who is one half of the band National and emerges as one of the great (and instantly recognizable) film composers.
The film’s dreamy rhythms don’t always add much in the way of plot, but that’s rarely an interest for Bentley and Kwedar, who here are more invested in trilling the sensations of subjectivity. And how impressive Aussie star Edgerton brings a real sense of all-Americanness to this story, making you wonder what he would have done in the more European vision of America if “The Brutalist” had planned conflicts that didn’t force him to let out. .
With an economy of story elements and set design – with most of the film taking place in the open expanses of nature – Bentley has created a plaintive and affecting film about how every moment has value. But at the same time, these moments are always about to evaporate or go down in flames.
Grade: B+
“Train Dreams” premiered in 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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