Train Dreams: A Review - A Malickian Meditation on Man's Search for Meaning

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A well-made and moving mediation on the search for meaning and human connection.

Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley and written by Bentley and Greg Kwedar, chronicles the life of Robert Grainier, a working man in the northwest of the United States in the 1900s.

The film, which has a run-time of 102 minutes and is currently streaming on Netflix, stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon and William H. Macy.

I knew nothing about Train Dreams prior to watching. I had no idea who whom the writer/directors were, no idea about the plot, no clue who starred in it. I went in naked as a newborn babe…and I think that’s a good thing…and because I think it’s a good thing, I will try my best to give as little information about the film as possible to you dear reader so that you can experience the film in similar fashion.

Train Dreams, which is based on the Denis Johnson book of the same name, is made by the same creative team – Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, that made last year’s Sing Sing…a film that was well-done and very affecting. Not surprisingly considering Bentley and Kwedar, Train Dreams is well-done and very affecting as well.

The best way to describe Train Dreams is to say that it is Malickian – in reference to filmmaker Terence Malick. Train Dreams is, like Malick’s work, more meditation and contemplation than plot driven. It also, like Malick’s movies, is painfully human and addresses deep existential topics while desperately seeking profundity.

I love Terence Malick. His film The Tree of Life (2011), which I coincidentally just re-watched last week, is not just one of my favorite films but one of the very best films ever made.

Malick’s movies are often challenging to general audiences – a topic I’ve written about at length, but his artistry and philosophy connect with me in a very personal, intimate and deeply moving way.

For instance, Malick’s films after The Tree of Life – such as Knight of Cups (2015) and Song to Song (2017), were simply too esoteric for most people, but I was blown away by them.

For good or for ill, Train Dreams is Malick for mainstreamers….let’s call it Malick-lite. The film examines many of the same subjects as a Malick movie, and it uses much of the same visual style as a Malick movie, but it is not quite as impenetrable and esoteric as a Malick movie.

Bentley and his cinematographer Adolpho Veloso, somewhat mimic Malick’s floating camera style, and make the most of the gorgeous natural light and scenery…and montage is used to great effect throughout to generate emotion…all signatures of a Malick film.

There is a voice-over used throughout the film, which is from a third person perspective. This voice-over is a bit too on the nose for me, but it is also the device that makes this movie a Malick-lite instead of a straight up Malick. Malick uses voice-over, but they are first person, and they reveal internal dialogues and not used as a way to give context to the plot. This voice-over reduces the sense of this film being a meditation and contemplation, and tries to make it more mainstream and digestible. In a sense it succeeds, but I would have preferred the film without it.

What most makes Train Dreams Malickian is that it is a film about meaning…more particularly, our search for meaning…and the void we all have within us and some of us are even brave enough to acknowledge. The film dwells in the dark, empty places we all carry, and it masterfully portrays the yearning for connection…to others, to the world, to our true self, to God.

Joel Edgerton is an actor I generally do not think much of on the rare occasion I think of him at all. But to Edgerton’s great credit, he does a wonderful job in this film of being a blank slate when playing the protagonist Robert. He doesn’t push too hard or try to give too much, he just quietly exists in the frame and lets the context and story do all the work for him.

That may sound like an easy task, but it truly isn’t, and very few actors are capable of it. For example, in Malick’s To the Wonder (2012), Ben Affleck is unable to do that exact thing and is terribly uncomfortable in front of Malick’s camera. Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain were masters of it in The Tree of Life (2011), as was Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett in Knight of Cups (2015).

Joining Edgerton in giving simple yet very affecting performances in Train Dreams is Felicity Jones. Once again, Jones does little more than be alive in front of the camera - easier said than done, and she fills the screen with simplicity. It also helps that she is a comforting beauty of which the camera makes the most.

William H. Macy was at one time one of the great character actors in the movie business, but that was a long time ago. In Train Dreams he is back at his best playing an aging logger who works with Robert. Macy has minimal screen time but he makes the most of it by giving a hearty and heartfelt performance.

Terence Malick films are akin to cinematic poems, you less try and figure them out than you let them wash over you. Train Dreams is not a cinematic poem, it is a bit too straight-forward for that, but it is reminiscent of that. It is a more mainstreamed version of Malick that while still an art house film, is an art house film made for general audience consumption - hence the Netflix deal. The truth is, for me at least, Malick-lite is better than no Malick at all.

Train Dreams isn’t perfect, but it is very well-made and skillfully acted, and it is artful in its genuine yearning for humanity and profundity….and for that I am grateful.

In our age of relentless cinematic midgetry, where lesser films are heralded as masterpieces (I’m looking at you Sinners and One Battle After Another – both painfully vapid and vacuous exercises), and hyperbole rules the day, Train Dreams is most definitely good enough to qualify as one of the very best films of the year.

While I’d love to say that everyone should watch The Tree of Life with their family on Thanksgiving night, but I am smart enough to know that would be catastrophic, but I do think Train Dreams is a solid choice for mainstreamers and cinephiles alike to watch together on Thanksgiving night over pumpkin pie and hot chocolate...and doing a double feature with Sing Sing would work well too.

©2025

Sing Sing: A Review - Prison and the Power of Drama

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A simple movie, featuring a terrific performance from Colman Domingo, that is bursting with complexity and humanity.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” - Albert Camus

Sing Sing, written and directed by Greg Kwedar, tells the story of the prisoners who act in the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) drama program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

The film stars Academy Award Best Actor nominee Colman Domingo as well as a group of men who were actually incarcerated and part of the RTA, including Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin and Sean San Jose.

Sing Sing has been in very limited release in theatres since July of 2024, but I only saw it just this past week as I got a screener for it from the Screen Actors Guild….and I’m very glad that I did.

As an acting coach and actor, Sing Sing is right in my wheelhouse. It is a simple film bursting with complexity that celebrates the healing power of both drama and the art of acting. It is also a testament to the fragility, intricacy and complications of humanity.

Regardless of who the actor is, whether it’s Tom Cruise or the third spear-carrier from the left, in almost every case they have gotten into acting in order to try and resolve some trauma. The way they try and resolve it through acting can be different for each person. For example, some people try to become famous in order to find the love they feel they never received or to gain wealth and power to protect themselves or to the feed the ego that their trauma birthed. Or some will try and garner accolades to elevate their crippled self-esteem, or try to find respect by becoming an “artist” to show their commitment and purity to a higher cause. And some might do all of the above as the uses of acting to heal trauma are as diverse and vast as trauma itself, as I can attest from having worked with so many actors and actresses over the years.

What I loved about Sing Sing is that it does an admirable job of showing how acting (or any art) can, for those with the courage to dive in, cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter and the soul of the actor.

Colman Domingo, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar last year for Rustin and again this year for Sing Sing, is the heart and soul of this film. Domingo is utterly fantastic as John “Divine G” Whitfield, an inmate of some acclaim who has written books and plays while serving his time.

Domingo gives a subtle yet stirring performance that is filled with such complexity and humanity as to be a marvel. He is at once a saint, yet also crippled by his frailties, such as his ego and his fury at what he sees as an unjust system.

Colman Domingo probably won’t win Best Actor at the Oscars this year, but having seen all the nominated performances I can say unabashedly that he should.

Another stand out is Clarence Maclin who plays himself in the film. Maclin, a former real-life inmate and participant in the RTA, is a thug on the exterior but is a thoughtful, insightful and ambitious artist on the inside.

Maclin can mimic menace at the drop of a hat, but it is when he starts to push back against his “natural” instincts and actually becomes introspective that he comes to life and lights up the screen.

The rest of the real-life former inmates are very good in their roles because they seem like exactly what they are…real people who are kind of uncomfortable acting and being vulnerable in front of others. This discomfort, self-consciousness and amateurism is humanizing and extremely endearing…as well as very funny on a few occasions.

All of the real-life inmates give exceptional performances, but the most notable is Sean San Jose, who plays Mike Mike, a charismatic and charming inmate who is Divine G’s best friend.

Sing Sing has its flaws, and all those flaws fall on writer/director Greg Kwedar as they are structural in nature and diminish the film a bit, but it also has a dramatic vitality and tension to it that is uncommon, and that is to Kwedar’s credit.

Kwedar succinctly captures the prevailing sense of menace and peril of everyday life in prison as well as the suffocating sense of claustrophobia, and this imbues the film with a baseline of drama and a background of tension that befits a prison drama.

Kwedar also does a good job of showing just enough of the inmate’s performances without burdening the film with them. We get a taste and a taste is enough to maintain the spirit of the story without bogging it down in minutia.

It genuinely surprises me that Sing Sing is not nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars as it is a movie that would seem to be in the Academy’s sweet spot. But who knows what the Academy cares about anymore?

Regardless of what the Academy thinks, the truth is it is one of the very best films of the year and if you get a chance to see Sing Sing, whether in the theatre or on streaming/VOD, you really should. It isn’t the most deftly directed, or exquisitely acted film you’ll ever see, but it is a profound, efficient and extremely affecting one.

©2025