Avaliações de usuários

Robert's live is gently lived and not without deep tragedy. The film evokes our own memories, little joys and sadnesses, discoveries, losses, and hopes to bring grace to our self reflection. The film is heartbreakingly beautiful. Acting, editing, direction are just right. Looking forward to more performances from Edgerton.

The award-nominated writers of SING SING, Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley, have now upped their game even more with TRAIN DREAMS, this time with Bentley directing. It has a similar theme of the beauty and unpredictability of humanity and the world itself. Based on a novella by Denis Johnson, this is a character study of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger working on a railroad in 1917. He's stoic, a hard-working man with a wife (Felicity Jones) and daughter to take care of. He's a man of few words, but he's thoughtful, looking for purpose in life. Usually, having a narrator could be seen as a crutch, but it's done so well here, voiced by a smooth but powerful Will Patton. He gives us more insight into Robert and the world around him. The movie touches on discrimination during the "Great War", but its main focus is Robert and how the world changes around him. The process of building a railroad represents both destruction and progress. Chopping down trees, then making the world smaller by building railroads. It also focuses on Robert's workmates, one played by William H. Macy. His role is very small, but this might be the best he's ever been. Speaking of "best he's ever been", freakin Joel Edgerton. This man does so much, with little dialogue. It's an award-worthy performance on top of an already awesome career. Humanity's complicated relationship with nature is another theme here. Overall, this is a poetic meditation of America, about the ups and downs of one life among many. I had the privilege of seeing TRAIN DREAMS in a sold-out theatre, and I can't wait for you to see it when it comes to Netflix on November 21. I know this review is early, I just had to put something out there about it. Put it on a list, make a reminder, don't pass this one by when it finally releases!

I think all filmmakers should take the medium seriously, but most don't. It's an artform. I'm not saying make an art film, just be mindful. Take it seriously. Do honest work.

This movie isn't for everyone. There's no antagonist/protagonist face off with a satisfying conclusion. It's just a story.

That's all I'm looking for. A life that isn't mine, in a time and place I'll never know, told by someone mindful of the work they are doing.

Every couple of years, someone does this kind of work and I'm thankful for it.

One can't imagine the world as Robert has until you've been in his shoes. At 70 yrs old I can relate perfectly, as I have been a loner for the latter part of my life as well. Like Robert, I long for the love I lost, and the time I'll never get back.

This is a story of life, loss, beginnings, and end. Of loneliness, sorrow, and brief happiness, which seems to be always fleeting.

This movie has a warmth very rare in these days of "The Avengers, and Ironman, Avatar, etc, most will Find it boring, uninteresting, and vague. But it tells a very important story, and if you "Get It", you'll be much more content in your life.

Excellent Movie, with Magnificent Acting. Joel Edgerton should get an Academy Award for his role in this magnificent Masterpiece!

It's just a Very Moving Movie!!!!

"Train Dreams" reminded me a lot of "Nomadland," and affected me in the same way. There isn't any one big moment that hit me emotionally. Rather, the film builds up a gradual accumulation of moments that eventually tipped me over the edge, and I spent the last 30 minutes sobbing in the theater.

Also, like "Nomadland," "Train Dreams" really taps into what it's like to coexist with loneliness as a permanent part of the human condition. And it doesn't talk about it -- it makes you feel it. Joel Edgerton is giving an amazing performance. With little dialogue and little even in the way of story, he creates a character we feel we know like someone we've spent years around. There are some lovely performances in smaller roles too, notably William H. Macy and Kerry Condon, both of whom make a big impression with little screen time.

For all its sadness and uncertainty though, "Train Dreams" isn't a downer. Let's all hope we have a moment like Joel Edgerton's character has at the end, where something clicks and we figure out where we fit in the bigger picture.

Grade: A+

I haven't read the book. Thank goodness because by the sounds of the other reviews I might be disappointed.

But honestly I'm not sure how you could be with a movie like this. It is real and deep and so so sad but in such a wonderful and human way.

Memories of hugely inspiring books and movies from my youth such as "on the black hill" by Bruce Chatwin or "into the wild" the story of Chris Mcandless come flooding back as we follow simple woodsman Robert as he strangely appears in the world and navigates life, death, friendship and loss and generally wonders what the hell is it all about?

It is a beautifully woven film full of intense colours and shades of the natural world, you can feel the warmth of the fire, the glow of the sunset and the crisp notes of the snow. Incredible camerawork make every scene a visual experience.

The cast are equally good. Joel Edgerton has long been a favorite of mine since his directorial debut "the gift" and he just gets better and better. Wonderful to see william H Macy in such a perfect role too.

I know sad movies are not for everyone and to be honest they are a bit of a time and place for me too. But this was the time and the place and it encapsulated how I was feeling and helped me get a view on that by making me realise that I am not alone in being alone.

We all have our moments of loneliness and loss and sorrow. It is the one thing that makes us all equal as humans. We all have to deal with it sooner or later and no one's pain is greater or more important than any others. It is the true leveller of people in this world.

Robert doesn't understand this or pretend to he just lives this. He embodies this ideology quietly and stoically. He goes about his business and stays out of people's way as much as he can trying to make life work and aware of how risky it all is..He is a good man but he is lost emotionally and is trying to find his way through the world.

I loved it. I don't care if no one else loves it. It touches a very deep nerve with me and for that I am truly thankful for the people who made this film possible. Bravo.

Train Dreams is one of those films that, at first glance, seem to lean toward easy melancholy and empty contemplation. The premise, centered on the lonely life of a lumberjack in the early 20th century, could suggest a drama that is too slow, stuck in long landscapes and silent emotions. But what Clint Bentley delivers here is something much deeper. In his second feature film, he confirms the sensitivity he had already demonstrated in writing Sing Sing (2024), constructing a delicate experience about memory, loss, the passage of time, and the weight we carry when remembering what will never return.

Above all, the film is about how we deal with life when everything we once were is now behind us. It is about time passing without asking permission and about the people who come in and out of our lives, leaving only memories behind. Bentley and Kwedar transform this theme into something universal: anyone who has ever lost someone, who has seen the world change too quickly, or who has found themselves revisiting memories without knowing why, will find something here that resonates deeply. In the end, the film offers no answers, but leaves us with a powerful reflection: memories are what accompany us to the end, and it is up to us to choose how we want to live them. Time waits for no one, people come and go, but what we hold on to, even what we only realize later, is what shapes who we are. Train Dreams may be slow and contemplative, but it is precisely in this rhythm that it finds depth.

In the end, the film offers no answers, but leaves us with a powerful reflection: memories are what accompany us until the end, and it is up to us to choose how we want to live them. Time waits for no one, people come and go, but what we hold on to, even what we only realize later, is what shapes who we are. Dreams of a Train may be slow and contemplative, but it is precisely in this rhythm that it finds depth. It is one of the most sensitive and impactful films of the year, and certainly one of Netflix's strongest bets to win over audiences and critics. If life is made up of passages, so is cinema, and this is one of those films that remains.

A simple life illuminated by beauty and shadowed by loss. Train Dreams is a rare film that transports you on a sweeping, nostalgic journey through one man's story. Train Dreams has become one of my favorite films of all time. Joel Edgerton is flawlessly beautiful. It is for sure one of the best films of the year.

The calmness we deserve in today's pacing cinema. Loved it. We should have more of these. It's a whisper when everything else is shouting. A deep, soulful meditation on simple survival, memory, and the vast, quiet beauty of passing time. This one stays with you. It lingers, a quiet, profound ache of humanity.

Everythingpre about this film is simply beautiful.

Cinematography: I love movies with wide vista shots and use of natural lighting. While there weren't many wide shots here - for good reasons - the lighting was simply perfect.

Acting: Joel Edgerton knocked it out of the park. The supporting cast were very good, as well. William Macy is reliably good. I wished we had more of Felicity Jones' character, but the screentime she had was well used.

Story: Good overall but I don't think there should have been two major changes made from the novella that is the source material for the movie. I think those elements should have been kept in.

I chose to see Train Dreams because the screening fit my festival schedule and the brief synopsis sounded interesting. I trusted that the programmer had made a good choice. On the day itself, transit delays nearly disrupted my plans; I was stressed, rushed into the cinema and was relieved to take my seat just in time for the lights to dim.

Train Dreams slowed me down to a thoughtful pace like a window seat's countryside view. The film's beauty (cinematography, writing, acting, music) and the resulting emotional connection led me to tear up (I recall three particular moments) and I exited the screening thankful that I had seen this story in a theatre that was free of distraction. No film will be 'for everyone', but this one was a 10 for me. Best to read little of the plot and to just quietly follow the story.

I hope that whoever has a high sensitivity will see this movie. I never write reviews, but this movie touched my soul. With hypnotic visuals and a minimalist score, it blends gritty realism and dreamlike fragments. The film's slow-burn tension and raw performances create an intimate portrait of fragile hope.

This movie is such a masterpiece. Be warned: that story might wash all the tears out of you at the most expected moment yet without any warning, in the most delicate way. I still can't say if it was pulling joy or sadness, or both. But what a relief. The relief that we were, we are, and then we'll be.

Train Dreams is a 2025 period-piece that arrives with the intention of feeling heavy, atmospheric, and emotionally grounded-but instead struggles to find its footing from the very beginning. The film presents itself as a reflective, almost poetic journey, yet it never fully synthesizes its ideas into something cohesive or compelling. From the opening moments, you can sense that it wants to be profound, but the final product feels like a film still searching for its own identity.

A major issue is the narration-an element that is supposed to guide the story but instead becomes one of its biggest distractions. It's less of a traditional narrator and more of the actor speaking directly at the audience, but the delivery doesn't mesh with the screenplay's tone. It feels unfitting and intrusive, often breaking immersion rather than enhancing the emotional weight of the story. Instead of deepening the narrative, the constant commentary becomes repetitive and irritating, pulling you away from what little engagement the pacing provides.

The direction also feels sidelined, as though the filmmaker was forced to follow the screenplay with no creative freedom. The film has that rigid, boxed-in feeling where you can tell the writer's hand is controlling every moment. There's no room for spontaneity, no sense of organic movement within the scenes, and no stylistic inventiveness that might have elevated the material. For a period piece-where atmosphere and nuance are everything-this lack of breathing room is especially noticeable.

Across the film, Train Dreams lands with a one-dimensional heaviness. The story is delivered almost mechanically, with clear intent but no spark. It feels like watching something predetermined rather than performed, a narrative that hits its marks without any emotional resonance. The result is a film that becomes overwhelmingly boring for long stretches at a time. It's not that the movie is outright terrible-it's simply flat, predictable, and devoid of any sense of cinematic life.

This is the type of movie that audiences will click on simply because it's new on streaming platforms, only to quickly discover that it isn't the sweeping, emotionally rich period drama they were hoping for. Some viewers may latch onto its quiet tone or the historical backdrop, but many others-like myself-will find their attention drifting almost immediately. The repetitive structure, distant characters, and uninspired pacing make it difficult to stay invested.

Ultimately, Train Dreams is a film that never truly connects. It is technically competent but emotionally empty, stuck between wanting to be profound and failing to give viewers a reason to care. The one-dimensional acting and the overbearing, misguided narrative choices make the experience feel like a chore rather than a piece of art. By the end, I found myself wishing for even a moment of creative spark-something to break through the monotony-but that moment never arrived. For me, this film was a miss, and I walked away feeling nothing but boredom and disappointment.

In the Denis Johnson canon, indeed anyone else's canon, there's nothing quite like Train Dreams (2002), a short and matchless piece of pure Americana. His other masterpiece, Tree of Smoke, is totally different, a black-as-night Vietnam War epic. He also wrote terrific noir.

There's plenty of Terrence Malick in sophomore director Bentley's portrayals of the American wilds, but it might have taken an oracle at Malick's level, maybe a better cinematographer, to fully capture the sweeping universality of the workman Grainier's uniquely American travails as he marches alongside (rather than inside) its 20th century history.

The thoughtful Australian Joel Edgerton, long embedded in US, and in US cinema, thrives on roles like this. English actress Felicity Jones does the job, as his loved and lamented wife.

But do read Train Dreams, you won't forget it. Also, I dare some genius to film Tree of Smoke. Done properly, it might make Apocalypse Now look like a walk in the park.

Train Dreams is a film that fully captures an entire life - and an entire era - in a hundred minutes. A quiet, clear narrative built on images that rely less on big plot turns and more on the weight of single moments. The cinematography leans on wide, unwavering shots of nature, filmed almost entirely outdoors, turning both the beauty and the ruthless force of the landscape into a character of its own. The camera observes instead of explaining. It shows what fades, what remains, and what gets lost in between.

The storytelling is poetic without ever slipping into sentimentality. The film largely avoids explanatory dialogue - understanding comes through the narrative itself: through music, through silence, through glances, through the landscape that wraps around the characters. In that sense, Train Dreams recalls Terrence Malick - not through imitation, but through the same deep belief in image, rhythm, and atmosphere as carriers of emotion.

The soundtrack and sound design work closely with these visuals. Music and ambient sound hold the inner lives of the characters, especially that of Robert Grainier, whose plain humanity and quiet dignity form the film's center. His performance is restrained, almost rough - and all the more powerful for it. This man lives a life marked by hardship but also by small moments of beauty; a life full of loss, time, and change; trauma, but also silent acceptance. His loneliness is never staged melodramatically, but as something observed, sometimes even poetic.

As the railroad cuts through forests and progress pushes into untamed land, the old world disappears. The film doesn't turn this into a grand thesis - it simply lets it happen: an era dies, and Grainier witnesses it in silence. The railroad becomes a symbol of humanity's intrusion into nature, the engine of a transformation no one can stop. Within all of this lies a deep sense of melancholy - an elegy for the American West dissolving inevitably into modernity.

Visually, the film rests on clear, vivid, almost crystalline compositions that are allowed to linger. Each shot feels like a memory etched into the land itself: sometimes harsh, sometimes tender, always full of atmospheric force. Nature is not just a backdrop but both mirror and counterworld - a place of beauty and of danger, of freedom and of indifference.

Emotionally, Train Dreams is unexpectedly warm. The sadness is present, but it carries dignity. The narrative is full of quiet shocks that unfold slowly. What remains in the end is a feeling that's hard to name but easy to sense: a soft, overwhelming awareness of how fragile a life is, and yet how meaningful even the smallest moments can be.

Train Dreams is less a traditional film than a poetic space of memory - a work defined not by plot but by atmosphere, time, and humanity. Its strength lies not in what happens, but in how it is shown. In details, in glances, in silence. And in that, it finds its true power.

A serene Masterpiece for the soul. For the people growing old, feeling time pass.

I hope this movie gets more attention, its exactly what I hoped to see and been missing a lot from the big and small screens alike. A good story, an important message full of emotion and just perfect acting. Cant find something bad to say about it, only that I wanted more.

Oh boy, pretty good movie. It's just raw, no "come on, cry" music everytime something happens to force you to feel, no need for this when you have directing talent. I am so confused that this movie comes from Netflix. I thought a movie like that in 2025 wasn't possible anymore with Hollywood going downhill.

Everything is so realistic, the scenes, shots, sound, everything is just so well done, absolutely refreshing.

As a father of a little girl this movie hit me right in the feels. I absolutely recommend it and I am not easy to please.

Train Dreams is a film about connection in all its dimensions, between humans and nature, past and present, and the evolving selves we carry within. It's a work suffused with longing, tracing the invisible threads that bind us to the world and to one another. Bentley's vision feels deeply humanistic, with clear nods to Terrence Malick, Days of Heaven and A Hidden Life in particular, while the spare, unadorned narration evokes the Hemingway-like lyricism of Denis Johnson's original novella.

Together with co-writer Greg Kwedar (Sing Sing), Bentley transforms Johnson's prose into a meditation on beauty and cruelty, a film of echoes and silences. The train becomes both symbol and spirit, a vessel of progress and destruction. The same railroad that once connected a continent also carved through its ancient forests, a reminder that every act of creation carries its own shadow of loss.

At its core, Train Dreams tells of an ordinary man rendered extraordinary through his quiet endurance, a life marked by guilt, grief, and fleeting grace. It unfolds as a birth-to-death portrait of what it means to belong, to the land, to memory, and to the ghosts who walked before us. What emerges is a film as tender as it is tragic, a modern elegy for connection in all its fragile, fleeting forms.

Clint Bentley's adaptation of Train Dreams is a slow, yet, beautiful, gentle, and reflective tale about the American dream. Sheltered with sadness, love, hopes, dreams, and peace.

Throughout, Bentley establishes the narrative, atmosphere and direction perfectly. Many of the musical choices, camerawork and colorful presentation helps establish it's time period. Exploring it's themes about how people strive to succeed in the American life and their struggles with deep emotions and grace. Alongside with the beautiful sound designs, costumes and tone, the performances from the cast members are great. Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Clifton Collins Jr. And the rest of the cast members provide subtle, yet, realistic and graceful performances throughout. Which makes their characters, personalities, and chemistry arches interesting and engaging. I did enjoy the journey the characters encounter throughout.

On the writing, I do appreciate the writing and how the themes were explored. Bentley explores these concepts with grace and interesting arches to how it develops the characters and what it wants to present.

With the direction being good and dialogue, some of the exposition narration, personally, felt a bit derivative as it feels like it spills out too much exposition needed for it's viewers. I personally wished it went without the narration format, and presents its tale using presentation, symbols, and a bit more meaningful actions.

Overall, Bentley piece about the dreams and life is great.

Train Dreams is a film that relies more than anything on the viewer's patience- a quiet, meditative work steeped in natural landscapes that seeks to recreate the experience of life in the American West in a poetic manner. Drawing inspiration from contemplative, nature-centered cinema, Clint Bentley has crafted a film that is visually striking and at times breathtaking. The extraordinary cinematography, untouched landscapes, and use of natural light evoke a sense of nature's silent grandeur, which stands as one of the film's greatest strengths.

However, Train Dreams falters in structure and pacing. Its excessive slowness, loose construction, and lack of dramatic pull gradually wear down the viewer's focus. Rather than advancing its themes, the film repeatedly stalls in the same philosophical meditations and fails to allow its ideas to deepen. Although this unresolved, pessimistic view of life's meaning can be powerful in moments, it ultimately cannot carry the weight of a feature film on its own.

Joel Edgerton's performance is the film's emotional anchor. With minimal dialogue, he conveys exhaustion, sorrow, and the inner silence of a lonely man with striking clarity. Felicity Jones also brings warmth and credibility, adding a human presence to the film's cold and muted world. Still, in the end, the film feels more like a beautiful but unfinished exercise in cinematic poetry than a fully realized experience.

Simple. Profound. Straightforward. Poignant. A picture of a normal life. Connected to everything even if it's quiet and seemingly unimportant. Some could find it slow, but if you've lived a little life's I think you'll find it a beautiful reflection on a life lived on Earth. Great performances and cinematography.