Directing: A-
Acting: B+
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A
Editing: A-

Who knew that Train Dreams had such a connection to Spokane, Washington—the city where I grew up? Set mostly in the Idaho panhandle over decades starting in 1917, Robert Granier (Joel Edgerton) works mostly in the logging industry, but spends a short time on the Spokane International Railway, and he later takes the train for visits into Spokane. There is a brief sequence, very late in the film, of Robert walking the streets of downtown Spokane, passing old buildings I remember vividly from my teenage years. There’s a glimpse of the clocktower on the Review building, which has stood since 1891—somewhere in the vicinity of when Robert was born. The sequence is set in the 1960s, and Robert has a brief exchange with a woman on the street as they watch live footage of the Earth from outer space on a TV in a store window. The sequence also features a barely-seen glimpse of the 16-story Washington Trust Financial Center, which was not built until 1973, but I guess I’ll forgive the movie for that.

As is typical of film productions, most of the filming of Train Dreams was not quite where it was actually set. Aside from the brief excursion to Spokane, which is located about 22 miles from the state line with Idaho, all the scenes with Robert and his wife Gladys (Felicity Jones) are set in Idaho. There are many scenes of Robert working industry logging jobs far from home, but this still must be mostly in Idaho; we are told very early on that Robert never makes it further east than a few miles into Montana. These sequences feature deeply lush greenery that is very believable as Northern Idaho, where I have spent a lot of time. Nearly all of this film, however, was shot in Eastern Washington. The Inland Northwest is the Inland Northwest, I guess.

We get seldom enough film production oner here where I now live in Seattle; Spokane’s history with mainstream film is even spottier, with truly great films set there being rare indeed. Train Dreams represents a truly unusual circumstance in which I am jealous of their access to theatrical release: Train Dreams was just released today on Netflix, which was the only way I was able to watch it. As far as I can find, this film got no theatrical release in my local market at all. Netflix did their eternally frustrating thing with Oscar-worthy productions, giving it a limited release in order for it to qualify. I guess they took pity on Spokane, allowing locals to see it as it is best experienced: it’s currently playing there at the Magic Lantern Theatre.

And I do wish I could have seen this in a theater, it is so beautifully shot. Robert Grainier spends a lot of time onscreen doing timber industry jobs, mostly chopping down trees, and sometimes barely avoiding tragic ends from falling limbs or sometimes entire trees. Indeed he witnesses the deaths of other workers several times. The train of the title is somewhat misleading, given how much more time is spent with timber. But, during a job on the railroad, he witnesses the casual killing of a Chinese railroad worker, and this haunts him for the rest of his life, often in his dreams.

It should be noted that Train Dreams is very quiet, meditative, and a kind of gradual easing into sorrow. One might even spend some of the first half of the film wondering what the point is, as we simply see scenes from Robert’s younger days, the way he happens upon the woman he falls in love with without actively searching for her. They build a house together, Gladys raises chickens, and has their baby. I knew going in that Train Dreams is largely about grief—this seems to be a very popular motif in film of recent years—and that had to mean Robert was destined to lose his family. I kept wondering how it would happen and what level of horror would accompany it. This is, indeed, a turning point in the story with true horror from Robert’s point of view, especially with no definitive closure as to the specifics. I’ll just say that, at the very least, from the audience perspective, at least this particular loss is not the result of any human cruelty. It’s closer to the indifference of nature.

In any event, Robert is left alone, and director and co-writer Clint Bentley—who also directed and co-wrote last year’s spectacular Sing Sing—very effectively conveys a potent loneliness in this man, for basically the rest of the film. That is, until, for one brief moment, he experience a genuine moment of connection. It is brief indeed, but also spectacularly executed: it’s a deeply moving moment, and one that brought tears to my eyes without employing any of the typical “sad movie” tricks.

Train Dreams is the odd kind of movie that has a melancholic tone that somehow also has a comfort to it. In the wake of the horrid scene with the Chinese railroad worker, Robert regularly encounters people who offer him understanding and kindness. There are three such key characters as the story unfolds: an annoyingly talkative shirking but kind old man played by William H. Macy; a local Native shopkeeper who looks after Robert in his deepest throes of grief, played by Nathaniel Arcand; and a kind of hermit kindred spirit in a forestry worker played by Kerry Condon. In a scene where they share some tea and have an unusually heartfelt conversation, the forestry worker reveals she also recently lost her husband, and when Robert asks if he sounds crazy, she astutely notes that when something like this happens, nothing you do is crazy. At the end of this exchange, she observes that they are “just waiting to see what we’ve been left here for,” and that line has really stuck with me.

Robert does also encounter other people who treat him with callousness, particularly younger colleagues as he begins to realize he is aging out of the manual work of timber. Still, he lives his entire life as a quiet, stoic man who really never changes, except perhaps in that brief moment near the end. But sometimes it’s only a brief moment that can make all the difference, and it was indeed the moment that opened up my love for this quietly beautiful movie.

*Robert keeps walking the path set out before him.*

Overall: A-