THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN ENGLISH MOVIE REVIEWFull Cast And Crew
Starring: Emilie Dequenne, Catherine Deneuve, Ronit Elkabetz, Matthieu Demy
Director:André Téchiné
Writer:André Téchiné, Odile Barski, Jean-Marie Besset
Studio:Strand Releasing
Producer: Said Ben Said
Director of photography: Julien Hirsch
Production design: Michele Abbe
Music: Alain Sarde
Editor: Martine Giordano
Sales: UGC
No rating, 105 minutes
Genre:Drama
Release Date:January 22nd, 2010
Movie Review
The Girl on the Train is based on a true story and was adapted from a play by Jean-Marie Besset. Andre Techine's film adaptation is about lies, people of wealth, Judaism and a anti-Semitic attack on a suburban train. It covers the complexities of human conditions and emotions. Techine is a French screenwriter and film director who has had a long and distinguished career that placed him among the best post-New Wave French film directors.
This provocative narrative revolves around a real event that took place in France in 2004. It is mirrored on psychological circumstances and consequences surrounding this rich drama about a bold lie. The plot is set in the low income suburbs of Paris where a series of spontaneous youth riots erupted in 2005. Film icon Catherine Deneuve and Emilie Dequenne are lead characters as mother and daughter Louise and Jeanne. Louise makes a living as a baby-sitter and Jeanne is a young woman who is attempting to find her place in life.
Young and naive Jeanne meets and falls in love with a university wrestler named Franck (Nicolas Duvauchelle). Franck works in a shady warehouse storing black-market goods and involves Jeanne in his illegal schemes. At the same time, she secures a secretarial position via her mother Louise's old admirer Samuel (Michael Blanc), a successful lawyer who defends Jewish cases. Jeanne is a fish out water in this job because she has little and no interest in religion or politics, although her dead father was an advocate for Jewish rights. However, the more she gets romantically involved with Franck and his crimes, the more she loses her principles. Franck eventually dumps Jeanne. Jeanne invents a web of lies saying she was a victim of an assault in a train by a group of Black and Arab youths who mistook her for a Jew. This is her way of attracting sympathy for herself.
Director Andre Techine uses actual court records in this adaptation and orchestrates a well oiled plot for this film. The film uses a host of characters to parallel each other which connect all scenarios. Actually, the film is divided into two parts; the circumstances leading up to the claims and the consequences from the lies. It breaks down to a theme of "truth and consequences" with exceptionally brilliant performances by Emilie Dequenne, Catherine Deneuve, and Nicolas Duvauchelle. They based their roles on newspaper articles and television images of unconscious racism and anti-Semitism.
The Girl on the Train displays a stimulating plot of dramatic entanglements that explore a complex family and social relationships haunting French society's fear.
