I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including Sydney Sweeney’s “Christy,” the historical drama “Nuremberg” and Jennifer Lawrence in “Die My Love.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Train Dreams,” a new drama set in the early 20th century and now playing in theatres, Joel Edgerton plays Robert Grainier, a logger and railway construction worker who plays witness to the decline of the old frontier as the world as world is transformed by trains, automobiles and changing times. “It’s all going by so fast,” says Grainier’s wife Gladys (Felicity Jones).
CAST: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Clifton Collins Jr., Kerry Condon and William H. Macy. Directed by Clint Bentley, who co-wrote the screenplay with Greg Kwedar.
REVIEW: Based on the novella by Denis Johnson, “Train Dreams” is an elegiac look at nature, love, life and the passage of time.
Joel Edgerton plays Robert Grainier, an itinerant worker as a logger and on the railway in the Pacific Northwest. Orphaned at a young age, his life is changed forever when he meets and marries Gladys (Felicity Jones), who brings stability to his life. Despite long, money-making stints in the logging camps, he becomes a devoted father to daughter Kate.
When tragedy strikes, Robert is left alone, “waiting to see what we were left here for.”
“Train Dreams” moves at its own speed. The lovingly considered, deliberately paced story of a man of few words, it’s a quiet movie that speaks loudly on the connectedness of the earth and the people who live on it.
Edgerton hands in a career best performance as the stoic Robert. He’s a tough man, unambitious, but unafraid of hard work. Happy with simple pleasures, his innate understanding that life is a series of moments to be savored reveals the heart of a poet. It’s that spirit that gives the movie its soul as Robert navigates his journey of joy, sadness and healing.
Beautiful cinematography by Adolpho Veloso captures the land’s ruggedness, creating a lyrical backdrop for the story’s beauty and brutality. As Robert comes to understand his connection to the land, the forest he helped decimate as a logger becomes a character in this man’s life story of loss and love.
“Train Dreams” is a lovely, contemplative movie about the attempts to understand the ephemeral aspects of life. There’s no spectacle, no grandstanding, just intimate, poignant grace notes of one man’s existence.
