Sitting on a train, looking out the window, you have daydreams about the people you see along the route.
Those daydreams are probably more satisfying than the plot worked out in “The Girl on the Train,” a tepid new thriller.
It’s based on Paula Hawkins’ best-selling novel, a whodunit told in fractured style. In the film, we have three different perspectives on a gone girl (er, missing woman).
Our main point-of-view is Rachel (Emily Blunt), an alcoholic wreck who rides the Hudson Valley train every day. She is tormented by views of her old house — mansion, really — where her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux) lives now with new wife Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) and their baby.
A couple of houses down, there’s another woman, Megan (Haley Bennett), who seems enviably happy. But one day Rachel notices Megan is being kissed — not by her husband (Luke Evans) but by another man.
For a while, screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson and director Tate Taylor (“The Help”) are content to wallow in Rachel’s misery. Emily Blunt delivers the goods, but she seems on her own, unconnected to a sturdy plot mechanism that would keep this all going.
When the tale turns into a mystery, the suspense barely gets on the boil. You might be vaguely curious about who did what, but you won’t care much about this drab batch of characters.
The men are so unpleasant they make you wonder whether Hawkins had an ax to grind. Including Megan’s unethical psychiatrist (Edgar Ramirez, recently seen in “Joy”), these three are different degrees of louse, distinguishable by gradations of facial hair: clean shaven, stubble, beard.
There’s potential with the women, including Megan’s feral restlessness and Anna’s steadfast desire to be a housewife. These ideas are introduced in early scenes, then dropped. Bennett (currently seen in “The Magnificent Seven”) and Ferguson (very good in “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation”) are talented, but without room to play.
Director Tate tries to approximate Rachel’s woozy perspective, but mostly in a superficial way. Nothing’s rooted; the revelation that Rachel commutes every day despite having lost her job a year earlier is mentioned, then unexplored. (But there must be a movie in that idea.)
No one mentions that everybody involved in the story must be fabulously rich to afford the Hudson Valley mansions, either. For that, you’d need a wilder, more scathing attitude. This movie is content with playing it much too straight.
“The Girl on the Train” (2 stars)
Paula Hawkins’ best-seller about a missing woman is adapted without many thrills, although Emily Blunt labors mightily in the central role. The characters are so drab we can’t care much about them, so the suspense barely gets on the boil. With Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett.
Rating: R, for violence, language, nudity
Showing: Alderwood, Alderwood Mall, Cinnebarre Mountlake Terrace, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Stanwood Cinemas, Meridian, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Thornton Place Stadium, Woodinville, Cascade Mall
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