2015 thriller literature was pierced by the killer chills of Paula Hawkins’ brilliant The Girl On The Train and now just a little over a year on, it’s about to arrive on the big screen. The movie takes a slightly significant trans-Atlantic hop over to the the US, but from the look of the trailer below the rest of the story looks pretty much unchanged from the taught and gripping London-based story of the book.
Bringing such a tense narrative to life on the big screen was always going to be a big job to carry off and director Tate Taylor will shoulder a lot of the responsibility. Emily Blunt (The Huntsman: Winter’s War) will be taking on the lead role as alcoholic obsessive Rachel Watson as she tries to piece together the haze of her depressing existence.
Release date
The film adaptation has been confirmed for a UK release date of Friday the 7th October 2016, which coincides with the North American release on the same date. There isn’t a great deal else scheduled to arrive on the same weekend, so it should be one of the must see movies, especially with the success of the book behind it. It also comes out in the run-up to Halloween, so it’ll be a contender for Autumnal thriller action.
Story
Just as in the book, the plot centres on Rachel Watson as she travels in to the city by train, passing the house she used to live in with her ex-husband Tom, who is now married to Anna. Despite her darkly compulsive focus on her old life, she starts to become just as obsessed with another couple a few doors down, but when her impression of their seemingly perfect life is pierced by a fleeting glimpse of infidelity things start to fly off the rails for Rachel.
Cast
Joining Emily Blunt in the movie adaptation of The Girl On The Train is Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) as Anna, Justin Theroux (Zoolander 2) as Tom, Haley Bennett (The Equalizer (2014)) as Megan and Luke Evans (The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies) as Scott. The cast also includes Édgar Ramírez (Point Break) as Dr. Kamal Abdic, Allison Janney (Minions) as Officer Riley and Lisa Kudrow (from blinking Friends) as Monica.
Production
Tate Taylor directs the film from a screenplay written by Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary) with Marc Platt (Bridge Of Spies) as the producer. Celia D. Costas and Jared LeBoff are executive producer for Dreamworks Pictures with Universal Pictures releasing the film worldwide.
First impressions
When we initially discovered that the film adaptation of The Girl On The Train would be getting a US location facelift, we expected it to be a pale comparison to the book. However, despite still being a little disappointed that it’s not going to get the London view it should have been given, we’ve been surprised by how good the trailer looks. It comes across as being tense and tightly coiled as the fug of Rachel’s problems start to unwind.
For anyone that missed the book the first time around, we can’t recommend it enough. You can read our The Girl On The Train review for more details and while reading it ahead of the film will take away the surprise element the movie release will have, it’s probably better that than the other way around. Either way, it’s also shaping up to be a strong movie to add to the watch list for any thriller fans out there. If you liked the big screen adaptation of Gone Girl then you’re probably also going to like this.
