FILM REVIEW
TRAIN DREAMS
Rated PG-13
102 Minutes
Released in Theatres November 21st, Now Streaming on Netflix
Nominated for one Golden Globe, may be nominated for the Academy Awards
Train Dreams is based on a novella by Denis Johnson, published in 201,1 that originated as an article in The Paris Review in 2002. The novella was described as “a daring lament to the American West.” The screenplay for this film was written by director Clint Bentley with Greg Kwedar and premiered at Sundance 2025. Kwedar and Bentley were the forces behind the great documentary-style drama Sing Sing (2023).
Train Dreams is an exceptionally beautiful film that plays out against the historical backdrop of a young United States after the Civil War. The filmmakers, to their credit, do not try to put the story into words. They create for our view the open lands and nascent towns of our country in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Industrialization and efficient travel options were just starting to appear in our vast western territories. In this fictional story, we follow the life of “Robert Grainier,” born in the 1880’s, who, as an orphaned child, never knows his parents nor a settled life.
Sent to Idaho at the age of 7 with his destination pinned to his jacket, he travels the land by railroad, and that railroad becomes the most stable part of his life. As he grows up, Grainier joins logging crews each year and goes to live among the trees, a wanderer of sorts, despite having a paying job. He marries, builds a home, and has a child.
Production designer Alexandra Schaller literally had to “cast a forest,” and the filmmakers did a fantastic job of coordinating the rich hues of each scene, shot on location in Washington State forests. Robert is at home in the vast landscapes that are the Northwest at that time. Many of those environments still exist today, and if you stand quietly in one of those forests, you can feel the hearts of the trees, many of which have been standing before you arrived on this earth and will be there long after you leave.
By preserving the simplicity of the story, the filmmakers capture this forested land in all its richly silent but almost musical shimmering aura. With its extraordinarily rich coloration, the film permits you to see vividly the world of Grainier, close to what existed during that time and place.
Australian actor Joel Edgerton as Grainier delivers a resounding performance in this quiet role. You feel like you’re traveling through place and time with him. The narration by Will Patton is straightforward and melodic, like a troubadour recounting a tale. Edgerton notes that he had read the book years ago and loved it, even asked about the rights to it. Years later, he found that it was being made as a film by Bentley and knew it would not be easy, but he watched Bentley’s film Jockey (2021) and knew the director could do it justice.
Edgerton wanted to understand as much as he could about the place and time of the story, so in preparation, he read diary entries and articles from the late 1800’s and early 20th century, written by sharecroppers, homesteaders, and others who settled those lands. As Grainier’s wife, “Gladys,” Felicity Jones is superb, as is Kerry Condon as “Claire,” whom Grainier meets later in his life. Both actresses make powerful impressions with little screen time.
Director Bentley grew up on a cattle ranch in Florida, and his uncle was a logger. His Dad, a jockey, was tough but also could be tender, as he recalls, and though not highly educated, had a heightened sense of our existence alongside nature. Probably much of Grainier’s character is based on Bentley’s Dad.
Edgerton summarizes the impact of Train Dreams better than anyone. He says, “It leads you to this feeling that even though life can be awful, life can also be extremely, profoundly beautiful. And when you add it all up, for all the blows you might have absorbed in life, it ultimately is worth living.
Through Robert, we see resilience and regrowth. We see his ability to absorb these things and keep going, as we all have to do. We have a life, we live it out: Some of it is good, some of it is bad. At the end of the day, the movie really illuminates the beauty of life despite some of the things that we’ve faced within it. And that it is a profoundly wonderful thing to have — that gift of an entire life, that collection of memory.”
Of all the films of 2025, Train Dreams will probably remain vivid in your memory and will surface whenever you are able to pull yourself away from your busy life and survey the vast world around you. I believe, as does Edgerton, that Train Dreams is a significant movie which examines the meaning of life and our relationship to our planet and other living things.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable
adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
