Synopsis
The Girl on the Train is a 2009 French drama film directed by André Téchiné. Jeanne is a young woman, striking but otherwise without qualities. Her mother tries to get her a job in the office of a lawyer, Bleistein, her lover years ago. Jeanne fails the interview but falls into a relationship with Franck, a wrestler whose dreams and claims of being in a legitimate business partnership Jeanne is only too happy to believe. When Franck is arrested, he turns on Jeanne for her naivety; she's stung and seeks attention by making up a story of an attack on a train. Is there any way out for her?
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Cast
- Michel BlancSamuel Bleistein
- Catherine DeneuveLouise
- Émilie DequenneJeanne
- Nicolas DuvauchelleFranck
- Mathieu DemyAlex, le fils de Samuel
- Ronit ElkabetzJudith
- Jérémie QuaegebeurNathan, leur fils
- Arnaud ValoisGabi
Recommendations
- 85
NPR
While the story pivots on an actual girl-who-cried-wolf incident, this elegantly constructed movie is about much more than that. - 83
The A.V. Club
Given several years’ distance from the media blitz, Téchiné brings clarity, maturity, and perspective to the case while still subtly addressing all the thorny social issues the affair touched off. - 75
New York Post
Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne gives a smoldering performance as Jeanne. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Andre Techine's many admirers will not be disappointed by his latest offering, The Girl on the Train, but they might be hard-pressed to define it. - 70
Variety
From this polarizing lie, Techine fashions a brilliantly complex, intimate multi-strander, held together but somewhat skewed by the central perf of Emilie Dequenne ("Rosetta"), whose radiant physicality threatens to eclipse even Catherine Deneuve. - 70
Village Voice
For better or worse, there isn't a human experience that French director André Téchiné can resist lathering into a tone poem. - 70
The New York Times
The film can be described as a character study or a fictionalized slice of terribly real life. Mostly, though, it is an inquiry into the mysteries of other people. - 67
Entertainment Weekly
Téchiné has made a half-captivating, half-baffling tease of a movie in which one woman's destructive whim has the effect of making anti-Semitism look like a myth. It's a distortion that Téchiné, with a passivity bordering on perversity, does nothing to dispel.
