Geek On Film

Train Dreams

• Robbie Holmes • Season 5 • Episode 4

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0:00 | 8:23
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Today's Warner is all about train dreams. Based on Dennis Johnson's beloved novella, Train Dreams, is a moving portrait of Robert Grenier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly changing America of the early 20th century. It is written by Clint Bentley, Greg Quarter, and Dennis Johnson, and directed by Clint Bentley. I have this as Four Stars and a Heart over on Letterboxed, and my review is a deliberate and moving film. I really wish I was at a film festival watching this on a big screen with a group of Cenophiles. I feel like I would have been able to lock in more and be more moved. The quote from this film I really loved was we need a hermit in the woods as much as we need a preacher at the pulpit. So let's talk a little bit about this movie. The whole time I was watching this movie, all I kept thinking was, God, I wish I had gotten to go to Middleburg Film Festival this year. This is a classic film. I would have seen it at that film festival. And I feel like I would have been able to uh spend uh a rock solid two hours in a theater and come out the other end moved uh to tears and probably uh gushing about this film even more than I am right now. This movie is uh really powerful, it's visually stunning, and there's a whole lot of images that will stick with me for a very long time. Um, let's talk a little bit about the acting here. Uh Joel Edgerton plays Robert Grinier, and uh he is the sort of main character, and spend we spend the entire movie following his uh point of view and everything else. He also then meets Gladys, uh, who's played by Felicity Jones. Uh, she is amazing. Uh, and we follow uh Robert leaving uh to go off. Uh he also calls himself Robbie, which makes me really happy. It's not enough Robbie out there in the world. Um, but Felicity Jones shows up and as Gladys and is sort of like this breath of fresh air. Uh, she introduces herself to him and does all these things that I don't think were commonplace, at least that's the way it has seemed from the way that people act like uh people were in the time period this movie was made. I think Gladys is just a rock solid lady. Um he then goes off and continues to do a bunch of logging work and he's seasonal work and eventually comes back, and Gladys and him get married. And uh during the first half of the movie, we see that it's a lot of racism, uh, especially against anyone of age and descent, and there's some violence that is predicated against a character played by uh uh Alfred Sang, uh, who it plays uh Fu Sheng, and uh that person is killed. And that uh actor continues to return almost as the ghost of this character and uh haunts Robert for the rest of the movie. Um yeah, we spend so much time with these individual loggers and and all these uh sort of ex escapades of this group of people, and uh there's a couple of really uh amazing call-outs. Uh you have John Patrick Lowry playing Mr. Sears, uh, who's this loquacious, never-stopping um person uh who um is pretty amazing. And then you've got Paul uh Shredner playing Apostle Frank, uh whose story unfolds in a really interesting way. Uh William H. Macy plays Arn Peoples, uh, who kind of steals the movie away for a little while. He's unbelievable and uh truly moving. Uh absolutely positively moving sequences with him. John Deal shows up as Billy, who's unreal. It's so many good that guys in this cast. And I always love when uh a director and a casting director go down this rabbit hole of like, we got about like 15 people whose faces we need to sort of recognize, but they can play anything. And uh I listened to an interview uh with Clint Bentley talking about Joel Edgerton saying that he's a man out of time. He could play somebody in the 30s, he could play somebody today, he could play sort of anywhere across the spectrum. And he said that that was one of his superpowers. And uh, I I feel a little bit like Joel Edgerton has played a lot of characters in a lot of important movies, and I've never really focused on him. In this movie, he is sort of like uh a quiet, uh introspective character. So we spend so much time with him in these quiet places that are also uh chaotic. Uh, so it's really interesting. He's like this anchor in this in the center of the chaos, is the way I see him. Um, there's a big twist that happens about halfway through this movie, and then we spend an awful lot of time um figuring out how Robert is going to reconcile. But uh, I will say this is a movie that you should see on the biggest screen you can get your hands on um with the best sound. The sounds and the soundscape of this movie is really amazing. There's it's so quiet and still until it's not. Um, the crashing down of the trees in the forest is unbelievable. The idea of the opening sequence where you see a camera is mounted to a tree that is being brought down is really powerful. Um, the stories being told by some of the loggers and about how they're being affected. Like Arne talks about the fact that like we're we're taking trees that have been here for 500 years and it affects a man's soul. Uh, they're just amazing sequences and things that will probably stick with me for a long time. I don't know that this movie um is going to make its way into the top 10 this year of best picture, but I do think we've got an unbelievable amount of things here that could get nominated. Um, and this morning we had the short lists get dropped. Um, so that is an interesting one to put this in the time period uh of when A, I recorded this, um, but also um whether or not uh this movie is gonna get more love than I think it could. Um right now it is, let's see where it's called out. Uh Train Dreams is called out for cinematography, which makes a ton of sense to me. Uh, it is also called out for original score, which makes sense. It's super haunting. Um, it's called out for song, train dreams. Um, I don't know, man. That is a really stacked uh uh category this year. And uh that's that's it on the short lists. I do think we've got a chance here for other aspects, probably best adapted screenplay uh would not surprise me. I would say. Um who else? I'm surprised that hair and makeup didn't make it. This is an amazingly beautiful film. Uh yeah, that's sort of where I'm at, I think, with this movie. I hope you get a chance to see it. Everybody should. It's on Netflix, so there's no good reason not to watch this movie. But um, do yourself a favor. Try to put your phone across the room. Uh, if you don't have a great sound system, connect some headphones, do yourself a favor and get as uh immersed in this movie as you possibly can because it will reward you if you put in the effort. But it is slow cinema, it's a moving film that takes its time, it's its pace is relatively languid um until it's not. It did a lot of that in this movie where it's quiet until it's not, it's slow until it's not, uh, but it's worth it's worth watching. And uh you could do worse to spend two hours with this movie. Uh four four stars is nothing to sneeze at for me. I'm a pretty uh reasonable critic. Uh, I don't think I would say I was the harshest, but I am not easy to give out those stars. And uh this movie earned it. You should watch it. Go do that. Till next time. Bye bye.

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Robbie Holmes

Host