Train Dreams: A Review - A Malickian Meditation on Man's Search for Meaning

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A well-made and moving mediation on the search for meaning and human connection.

Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley and written by Bentley and Greg Kwedar, chronicles the life of Robert Grainier, a working man in the northwest of the United States in the 1900s.

The film, which has a run-time of 102 minutes and is currently streaming on Netflix, stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon and William H. Macy.

I knew nothing about Train Dreams prior to watching. I had no idea who whom the writer/directors were, no idea about the plot, no clue who starred in it. I went in naked as a newborn babe…and I think that’s a good thing…and because I think it’s a good thing, I will try my best to give as little information about the film as possible to you dear reader so that you can experience the film in similar fashion.

Train Dreams, which is based on the Denis Johnson book of the same name, is made by the same creative team – Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, that made last year’s Sing Sing…a film that was well-done and very affecting. Not surprisingly considering Bentley and Kwedar, Train Dreams is well-done and very affecting as well.

The best way to describe Train Dreams is to say that it is Malickian – in reference to filmmaker Terence Malick. Train Dreams is, like Malick’s work, more meditation and contemplation than plot driven. It also, like Malick’s movies, is painfully human and addresses deep existential topics while desperately seeking profundity.

I love Terence Malick. His film The Tree of Life (2011), which I coincidentally just re-watched last week, is not just one of my favorite films but one of the very best films ever made.

Malick’s movies are often challenging to general audiences – a topic I’ve written about at length, but his artistry and philosophy connect with me in a very personal, intimate and deeply moving way.

For instance, Malick’s films after The Tree of Life – such as Knight of Cups (2015) and Song to Song (2017), were simply too esoteric for most people, but I was blown away by them.

For good or for ill, Train Dreams is Malick for mainstreamers….let’s call it Malick-lite. The film examines many of the same subjects as a Malick movie, and it uses much of the same visual style as a Malick movie, but it is not quite as impenetrable and esoteric as a Malick movie.

Bentley and his cinematographer Adolpho Veloso, somewhat mimic Malick’s floating camera style, and make the most of the gorgeous natural light and scenery…and montage is used to great effect throughout to generate emotion…all signatures of a Malick film.

There is a voice-over used throughout the film, which is from a third person perspective. This voice-over is a bit too on the nose for me, but it is also the device that makes this movie a Malick-lite instead of a straight up Malick. Malick uses voice-over, but they are first person, and they reveal internal dialogues and not used as a way to give context to the plot. This voice-over reduces the sense of this film being a meditation and contemplation, and tries to make it more mainstream and digestible. In a sense it succeeds, but I would have preferred the film without it.

What most makes Train Dreams Malickian is that it is a film about meaning…more particularly, our search for meaning…and the void we all have within us and some of us are even brave enough to acknowledge. The film dwells in the dark, empty places we all carry, and it masterfully portrays the yearning for connection…to others, to the world, to our true self, to God.

Joel Edgerton is an actor I generally do not think much of on the rare occasion I think of him at all. But to Edgerton’s great credit, he does a wonderful job in this film of being a blank slate when playing the protagonist Robert. He doesn’t push too hard or try to give too much, he just quietly exists in the frame and lets the context and story do all the work for him.

That may sound like an easy task, but it truly isn’t, and very few actors are capable of it. For example, in Malick’s To the Wonder (2012), Ben Affleck is unable to do that exact thing and is terribly uncomfortable in front of Malick’s camera. Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain were masters of it in The Tree of Life (2011), as was Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett in Knight of Cups (2015).

Joining Edgerton in giving simple yet very affecting performances in Train Dreams is Felicity Jones. Once again, Jones does little more than be alive in front of the camera - easier said than done, and she fills the screen with simplicity. It also helps that she is a comforting beauty of which the camera makes the most.

William H. Macy was at one time one of the great character actors in the movie business, but that was a long time ago. In Train Dreams he is back at his best playing an aging logger who works with Robert. Macy has minimal screen time but he makes the most of it by giving a hearty and heartfelt performance.

Terence Malick films are akin to cinematic poems, you less try and figure them out than you let them wash over you. Train Dreams is not a cinematic poem, it is a bit too straight-forward for that, but it is reminiscent of that. It is a more mainstreamed version of Malick that while still an art house film, is an art house film made for general audience consumption - hence the Netflix deal. The truth is, for me at least, Malick-lite is better than no Malick at all.

Train Dreams isn’t perfect, but it is very well-made and skillfully acted, and it is artful in its genuine yearning for humanity and profundity….and for that I am grateful.

In our age of relentless cinematic midgetry, where lesser films are heralded as masterpieces (I’m looking at you Sinners and One Battle After Another – both painfully vapid and vacuous exercises), and hyperbole rules the day, Train Dreams is most definitely good enough to qualify as one of the very best films of the year.

While I’d love to say that everyone should watch The Tree of Life with their family on Thanksgiving night, but I am smart enough to know that would be catastrophic, but I do think Train Dreams is a solid choice for mainstreamers and cinephiles alike to watch together on Thanksgiving night over pumpkin pie and hot chocolate...and doing a double feature with Sing Sing would work well too.

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 136 - Sinners

On this episode, Barry and I head down to the Delta and sing the blues over Ryan Coogler's blockbuster vampire movie, Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan. Questions addressed include is Ryan Coogler good? Is Michael B. Jordan good? Is Sinners good? Stay tuned at the end for a rundown of the Summer blockbuster season and predictions regarding Fantastic Four and Superman. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 136 - Sinners

Thanks for listening!!

©2025

Sinners: A Review - Don't Believe the Hype

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An over-hyped horror movie that under-delivers on every count.

Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler, is a period horror film that chronicles Black twin entrepreneurs, Smoke and Stack, who open a juke joint in the Mississippi Delta in 1932 and contend with racism and vampires…and not necessarily in that order.

Sinners hit theatres on April 18th and was a run-away smash hit. The film was a box office blockbuster, making $350 million on a $90 million budget, was a critical darling, and generated a ton of positive buzz...some of which included Oscar talk.

I missed Sinners in the theatre, but as a fan of vampire movies, Blues music, actresses Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku and actor Delroy Lindo – all of whom have supporting roles in the movie, when the film hit Video on Demand this week, I quickly bought it (for $25 – essentially the price of two theatre tickets) and was excited to watch it and see exactly what all the fuss was about.

Having watched all two-hours and fifteen minutes of Sinners, I regret to inform you dear reader that I am completely at a loss for what all the aforementioned Sinners fuss was about.

Simply said, despite how much I wanted it to be, Sinners is just not a good movie…hell…it isn’t even an entertaining one. It is poorly paced, egregiously shot, incoherently written and at least in terms of its lead Michael B. Jordan, abysmally acted.

The film opens with a long set-up that introduces us to Smoke and Stack, the twins played by Michael B. Jordan. They have returned to Mississippi from Chicago where they worked for Al Capone. They are also combat veterans from World War I.

Smoke and Stack have a pile of money and buy an old lumber mill from a Klansman and turn it into a juke joint. The film takes place on the day they open the juke joint and the whole community (Black community) comes out to party there.

The languid first hour has the distinct pacing of a prestige drama, but it lacks both the prestige and the drama. The film then transitions, slowly…very slowly…into a horror film that is as derivative and dull as imaginable, and as predictable as can be.

The unquestionable highlight of the film is a scintillating music sequence in the juke joint that masterfully connects Delta Blues with African folk music and then to contemporary Black music. It is a visually and musically compelling piece of cinema. What makes that sequence stand out all the more though is that everything surrounding it is so visually unimaginative and aesthetically anemic.

For example, cinematographer Autumn Arkapaw, makes the decision to compose all of her shots exactly the same way, with the main subject smack dab in the middle of the frame. I know this style is en vogue nowadays but that doesn’t make it look any less amateurish and reprehensible. The cinematography in this movie looks like something from a second rate tv show on the USA network.

Another piece of cinematic malpractice is the mismanaged and poorly shot crescendo to the main action battle – which is cinematically obtuse, visually incoherent and dramatically incomprehensible…and a truly absurd and aggressively pandering coda tacked on at the end that only extends this already interminably long and decidedly lifeless movie.

Sinners is not aided in the least by the poor performance from Michael B. Jordan as the two leads. Jordan does next to nothing to differentiate between the twins and does little more than pose and preen his way through the film.

Jordan, who I once thought had such great promise as an actor – most notably in Friday Night Lights and Fruitvale Station, has eschewed acting for “blacting” in his movies now. “Blacting” is a vacuous and vapid form of stereotype incarnation in the place of actual acting among Black actors – and occasionally white ones. When someone “acts”, they create a rich and complex human character, when they are “blacting” they simply do a shallow pantomime of hollow Black stereotypes. Michael B. Jordan does blacting, not acting, in Sinners…as well as in the vast majority of things he’s been in over the last few years.

Jordan’s fall from artistic grace mirrors director Ryan Coogler’s similar precipitous stumble…not surprising since they have teamed up often over the years and both had their breakout with Fruitvale Station.

Coogler garnered much acclaim for Fruitvale Station, which was a film that showed him to be a director bursting with potential. Unfortunately, he has squandered that potential with a series of sub-par franchise films (Creed and Black Panther).

Yes, I know that Black Panther (which also starred Michael B. Jordan) was a blockbuster and got nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award…but I said it at the time and will say it again now…Black Panther is a middling Marvel movie. It just isn’t good…but critics slobbered all over it because it was a “Black movie” that came out at the height of the Trump shitshow (or first incarnation of the Trump shitshow) and all the #OscarSoWhite stuff and the rest of that era’s racial “awakening”.

I wrote about the middling nature of Black Panther when it came out and have only been proven more right as every day passes. That movie too was very poorly shot…and its cinematographer was…you guessed it – Autumn Arkapaw.

Black Panther II, which came out post Trump I and pre-Trump II, was a truly atrocious Marvel movie, and it showed the ever-expanding cracks in the Coogler myth that I astutely diagnosed much earlier on.

Now with Sinners, audiences and critics have been wowed, and I am left shaking my head in dismay, if not disgust. I get people want to be excited about movies again, and want to have a communal cultural experience, but Sinners is not the answer now…just like Top Gun: Maverick wasn’t the answer a few years ago.

Lowering our standards and pretending that Sinners (or Top Gun: Maverick, or Barbie) is a great movie, or even a good one, does no one, not audiences, not critics, not Hollywood and certainly not the art of cinema, any good.

Ryan Coogler’s success, like Jordan Peele’s and Greta Gerwig’s success, is a function of cultural wishful thinking, critical and audience virtue signaling, and a steep lowering of cinematic standards across the boards.

Sinners is a film that has no business making $350 million or of being adored by critics or of garnering Oscar nominations. The film’s success, both with audiences and critics, speaks less to its quality and more to how far both American intelligence and the art of cinema has fallen.

Ultimately, Sinners is the type of movie that dumb people think is deep, and stupid people think is smart. It is an instantly forgettable and entirely frustrating cinematic endeavor and you shouldn’t waste a single second of your precious time on it.

©2025