Train Dreams (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

PopEntertainment
Nov 5
3 min read

TRAIN DREAMS (2025)

Starring Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Clifton Collins Jr., Kerry Condon, William H. Macy, Chuck Tucker, Rob Price, Paul Schneider, John Diehl, Alfred Hsing, Nathaniel Arcand, Johnny Arnoux, David Olsen, John Patrick Lowrie, Brandon Lindsay, Eric Ray Anderson, Beau Charles, Rick Rivera, Taylor McKinley, Ashton Singer, Zoe Rose Short and the voice of Will Patton.

Screenplay by Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar.

Directed by Clint Bentley.

Distributed by Netflix. 102 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Screened at the 2025 Philadelphia Film Festival.

Most films show you certain periods of a character’s life, but Train Dreams is actually a visualization of one man’s entire life – from childhood to old age.

That means we see the good, the bad and the ugly in the life of Robert Grainier (played by Joel Edgerton) which lasts loosely from the late 1880s to the late 1960s. We see the heights, and the lows. We see the exciting and we see the boring. (And to be sure, there are extended periods of the film where Grainier is essentially alone and very little of note is happening.)

We see laziness, survival and sudden acts of violence. We see happiness and tragedy. We see his work like (a lumberjack helping to cut down massive trees, and he was also instrumental in building a bridge for the fledgling railroads), his short-lived love life and family, his beloved pet, and his eventual life of loneliness.

Train Dreams is based on a novella by Denis Johnson. And oddly, beyond being a history of a man, it is also a history of a nation. Robert Grainier was not an important man by most counts, in fact he was a bit of a loner and in the end his life did not cause a huge ripple in history, but he was an observant man, and he experienced the world moving forward, sometimes as a participant, more often as a spectator.

The defining moment in his life was when he was away on a job and as he returned home, he found his cabin burning down. His wife and young daughter were nowhere to be found in the wreckage, but he never gave up the hope (against hope) that they were out there somewhere and would eventually return to him. In fact, he built a new cabin on the site of the old place so they could find him if they were looking, and he lived there – other than some extended trips – for the majority of his life.

This was far from the only tragedy which Grainier experienced in his life. He saw a worker thrown off the railroad bridge he was working on, and he also saw an older friend and fellow lumberman (William H. Macy) get crushed when a tree came down on him.

However, for all of these hardships, Grainier also experienced great beauty and wonder. From his short-lived happiness as a husband and a father, to trivial things like the love of a loyal dog, to the wonder he felt when he periodically visited the big city, or went to see a movie, or took his first flight.

Lots of things happen in Train Dreams and at the same time not all that much does. In that way, the movie is just like life. Time passes and people persevere and learn and deal with the big and small issues of existence. For all the sadness and hardship that is endured, the wonder of a life well spent – and spent on one’s own terms – makes it much more than worth the ride.

Jay S. Jacobs