Middleburg: ‘Train Dreams’ Is a Stunning Remembrance

I cannot stop thinking about Joel Egerton’s eyes as his world changes around him in Clint Bentley’s awe-inspiring film, Train Dreams. Through the touch of man, the earth that we live on is changing, and we cannot help but ponder how deeply our presence is affecting this beautiful place. Can destruction have a positive effect on our surroundings, or must we reckon with how our hands transform the place we call home? Train Dreams is the most hauntingly beautiful film of the year.

We see the world through Egerton’s gaze, and, yes, through his dreams, but we experience pain, grief, and wonder that feel so overwhelming that we sometimes consider if we will be able to shake it. There is an enormous sense of possibility, and that is seen through Egerton’s Robert Grainier, a logger who witnesses more than he speaks. The men he works alongside, including a very welcome and scruffy William H. Macy as an explosives enthusiast, find themselves appreciating the natural beauty of the woods where they work. The trees’ presence providing a soft cocoon of safety and warmth.

Do our actions affect our future? Grainier wonders if his inability to intervene in the violence against a Chinese immigrant has a direct connection to the events that befall him later. After he meets Felicity Jones’ Gladys, they begin a family, and his life feels like it has a direct path. They build a house for themselves, measuring where rooms should be by counting the distance in their footsteps. This is what happiness is supposed to feel like, after all. Barreling towards that bliss feels too good to be true before an immeasurable tragedy leaves Robert feeling lost and directionless.

Egerton’s eyes carry a different weight in the second half of Bentley’s film. Does the beauty of the trees and the safety they once provided feel broken to him as he tries to re-establish his life? Will Patton provides grizzled narration throughout, but his delivery establishes the Everyman nature of Robert’s experience. If you were born in the Pacific Northwest around the turn of the century, Robert’s life could have been your life. There is no superiority, no condescension. Adolpho Veloso’s cinematography feels like it catches the last bit of light before night comes in, the purples and blues warming your skin. His work in this feels helps us feel temperature and even weather. You won’t find a more adoringly shot film this year.

Bentley has created a film, adapted with Sing Sing director Greg Kwedar from Denis Johnson’s novella, that is both expansive and heartbreaking. It lives as a historic retelling of how this country’s sacrifices led to some of its greatest achievements while also telling a tender story of loss.

Train Dreams debuts in select theaters on November 7 before dropping on Netflix on November 21.