“The Girl on the Train” isn’t quite the thrill ride it should be.
British author Paula Hawkins’ 2015 page turner gets the big screen treatment this year with top-notch talent above and below the line. So, why isn’t the movie version of “The Girl on the Train” as successful as the taut psychological thriller it was adapted from? For starters, Erin Cressida Wilson’s script cannot recreate the book’s first person narratives so she instead relies on simply transferring the rather obvious whodunit straight to the screen. The film also doesn’t expand or deepen the mystery with better red herrings than in Hawkins’ original prose. Finally, despite an able cast headed by Emily Blunt, and directed by Tate Taylor, the characters for the most part remain two-dimensional. A film is not a book after all, and this adaptation needed to be more than just a faithful recreation of the storyline to quicken the pulse of the movie-going audience.
