The Girl On The Train review: Parineeti Chopra film has the subtlety of Shatabadi Express

Mira Kapoor is a lady, on a practice. She’s a lush. Armed with a hip flask, into which deep inroads are regularly made. Thick kohl-smudged eyes, slurred tongue, fogged mind. She takes the identical practice, backwards and forwards from London to the suburbs, on a regular basis. On a regular basis, she passes her former residence, which falls alongside the tracks, wherein lives a reasonably girl Mira envies. After which at some point, that girl goes lacking. A physique is discovered within the woods. And questions abound.

This newest version of ‘The Woman On The Prepare’ comes after Hollywood model of the identical identify wherein Emily Blunt performs the alcoholic stalker with a darkish previous, which in flip was primarily based on Paula Hawkins’ bestselling novel. The usage of the ‘lady’ within the title might have been used to remind you of ‘Gone Woman’, wherein Gillian Flynn gave us a sizzling tackle the sexual, sensual lady who makes use of her wiles to purchase her means out of hassle. (It additionally launched an infinite array of thrillers with ‘lady’ within the title.) Hawkins’ lady wasn’t as sharp as Flynn’s, however there was one thing beguiling about the best way she allow us to into her head, though the movie had an excessive amount of occurring– too many characters, an excessive amount of sloshing of vodka, too many purple herrings. It was Blunt’s efficiency, even when it wasn’t her greatest, which carried the movie via.

The difficulty with Parineeti Chopra’s Mira is that you simply by no means fully purchase her. Because the lady with unresolved trauma attempting to place behind her damaged marriage, the actor seems excellent. A number of thought has gone into the unmade hair, the smeared kajal, the blood-shot eyes. However she isn’t written with sufficient depth. We do not know who Mira is, earlier than and after she meets with the good Shekhar (Avinash Tiwary), who wins her over earlier than the primary tune is out. Sure, there are songs within the movie. A Bollywood adaptation of a homicide thriller with out ‘naach-gaana’, in 2021? Perish the thought. It’s additionally why the movie is 2 hours lengthy.

The overstated writing lets down the plot, which in any case is crammed with apparently unrelated characters popping out and in: a really take-charge kind of police girl (Kriti Kulhari) is assigned to the case, a mysterious photographer creeps about the identical woods the place the physique is discovered; a spot of blackmail is within the air; an over-friendly shrink (Roy Chowdhury) reveals up briefly, as does a desi mobster. The characters come, and earlier than we will clock them, they go. And Nusrat (Aditi Rao Hydari), the lovely-looking girl who units all the things into movement, may simply as simply have been a wraith, so insubstantial is she.

It’s solely after a superb hour has handed that the overwrought Chopra settles down, to dig just a little deeper into her position, and ship moments when you may see the lady’s ache, even when fleeting. After which the movie swings proper again to its uneven contrivances, with a hard-to-swallow climax. Someplace within the movie, Mira is noticed at Paddington station, and also you flash again to the close to excellent Agatha Christie whodunit ‘4.50 From Paddington’, which can also be a few crime being witnessed from a practice compartment. Now that’s writing. Right here, you may see the dialogue coming a mile off. At one level, Chopra’s character says ‘mujhe apna previous nahin badalna’, and you realize, earlier than she opens her mouth, that she is going to say, ‘I wish to change my current’.

And this one, even higher, once more from Chopra: “fundamental usko kabhi nahin bataa paayi ki woh fundamental nahin, mera wound tha (I may by no means inform him that it wasn’t me, it was my wound)”. You don’t say.