Train Dreams is a careful balance of visual poetry and the harshness of First World War era America (the film spans 50 years but the majority of it takes between 1917 through the late 1920s). Director Clint Bentley certainly romanticizes old America in a very Terrence Malick-ian kind of way but he doesn’t shy away from showing the ugliness of chasing the American dream. A large chunk of the movie deals with loggers and railroad workers over a hundred years ago. People died horrible deaths in that line of work and
Train Dreams shows this. Another storyteller would have made this a tale about unionizing or the corrupt inner workings of the American labor force. Instead we get straightforward scenes of workers breaking bones or getting crushed to death by trees.
In the film Joel Edgerton plays “Robert” - a logger & railroad laborer that struggles with the loss of his family. While this is technically a
light spoiler, the voiceover narration hints at the tragic event in the opening minutes of the film. The story is less about the tragedy (which happens before we even get to the halfway point) and more about how Robert deals with everything. No one can ever fully recover from the loss of a wife and child but he eventually moves on with his life to
some degree. That’s the most disorienting aspect about
Train Dreams. It’s incredibly depressing but also beautiful to look at.
Earlier I mentioned Malick’s influence which is more than just visual (Will Patton's voiceover narration is right out of the school of Malick). Tree Of Life was an obvious visual reference point for Train Dreams but so are the earlier works like Days Of Heaven...
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Days Of Heaven / Train Dreams
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With
Tree Of Life there are some vague/general visual similarities which look nice when placed next to each other…
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| Tree Of Life / Train Dreams |
but then there's other super specific moments between both movies that really raised an antenna…
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Tree Of Life / Train Dreams
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Tree Of Life / Train Dreams
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Malick’s filmography isn’t the only thing
Train Dreams evokes/borrows from/steals from. This fits in line with other films like
Matewan or
The Assassination of Jesse James…
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| Matewan / Train Dreams |
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The Assassination of Jesse James... / Train Dreams
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In addition to following Robert move through the different stages of grief and depression,
Train Dreams’ secondary plot is about a fast changing America. The movie starts in 1917 and ends in 1968. Throughout the film Robert witnesses and struggles with everything from the chainsaw replacing the handsaw in his specific line of work to the accessibility of the modern television.
This is the type of movie that could potentially get hijacked for the wrong reasons by the wrong audience (chronically online right-wingers that incorrectly romanticize old white-centered America for the wrong reasons), but if you’re a fan of Malick-esque visual poetry and non-biased American history, this is definitely for you.
I went in to this with almost zero expectations and came out pleasantly surprised. This is definitely one of my favorite movies of the year. Next to films like Eddington, Sinners and One Battle After Another, this is one of the most interesting films about America to come out this year (America seems to be the biggest exploration/topic of 2025). The difference is Train Dreams is a good movie while the others have varying degrees of issues in my opinion. That doesn’t mean I dislike Sinners and Eddington but they are far from perfect. You can read my rant on One Battle After Another by clicking here.
With so many “nothing” movies clocking in at well over two hours, Train Dreams gets it’s point across in under 100 minutes (and I would have gladly taken a three hour version).
