Train Dreams (2025)

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this Best Picture nominee. I didn’t know much of anything about it, and while I wasn’t particularly excited for it, I tried to go in with an open mind. On the whole, though, I enjoyed it.

Train Dreams follows the life of Robert Granier, an Idaho logger in the early 1900s. We touch a little on his childhood, sent west on the train as an orphan, and glimpse into his later years, but for the most part, we focus on his prime working years. Robert lives for his wife Gladys and their young daughter Katie, but his hard, dangerous work takes him far away from their idyllic cabin in the woods. Every year, he ride the train to a different logging site, where he spends months chopping, felling, and dreaming of home.

That summary makes the film sound kind of simplistic, but while it is fairly slow-moving, it’s not without momentum or plot development. Some major things do happen in the story, and Robert gets put through the wringer. But throughout, matters are depicted with a quiet, contemplative air. The movie is bleak and beautiful, filled with dreams, regret, and fragile connections. There’s Robert’s loving relationship with his wife and daughter, but every time he’s home, he’s haunted by how much Katie has grown up since he last saw her. There are the men who drift in and out of his life, fellow loggers who pass the time with him, who might be there one year and gone the next. There’s his friend Ignatius Jack, who steps in to be a reassuring unobtrusive presence after Robert is dealt a heavy blow.

The film got four Oscar nominations in total. In addition to Best Picture, it’s up for Best Adapted Screenplay (it’s based on a novella of the same name,) Best Cinematography, and Best Original Song. The cinematography nod definitely makes sense to me! In some ways, it’s a bit of a freebie, since movies that show off beautiful landscapes tend to get accolades for their camera work, hehe. And to be sure, the landscapes in this movie are gorgeous—every time they show a lake or a river, it’s the purest, clearest water you’ve ever seen in your life—but it is genuinely wonderfully shot. The camera does its part to convey that beauty and bleakness, in capturing both how tiny Robert is within this wide wild land and the up-close immediacy of his heartache.

Joel Edgerton is effective as Robert. He’s a solid, plain-spoken man who isn’t hugely demonstrative but often shows his emotions in subtler ways. He, and some of the other characters in the film, show that limited education doesn’t limit depth of thought. I’m always happy to see Felicity Jones, and she’s very good as Gladys. She manages to feel very modern while still fitting well into the period setting. (I have to say, though, it seems like every time Jones appears in an Oscar movie, her role is “Wife of the Guy,” which is a bit of a bummer.) The film also features strong performances from William H. Macy and Kerry Condon.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, violence, language, drinking/smoking, and sexual content.