Girl on the Train and We

Yesterday evening, Paul and I went to the Pacific Regal to see the American rendition of The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. We had very low expectation before the movie, for we had heard lots of complaints about its being transplanted from London to New York, and Westchester County to boot. To offset our disappointment, Paul bought us two giant Pacific Rim burritos at Planet Fresh and popcorn for the theater.

It turns out that our preparation was exaggerated, even though the food was good for our body. When a Metro North train appeared on the big screen, we were enchanted. It brought us instantly back to our daily walks at Croton Landing, with commuter and commercial trains passing constantly to and from the Croton-Harmon Station. It also awakened our recollections of our train riding experiences to New York City and other destinations, looking out of windows at houses along both sides of railway tracks and wondering about their inhabitants' daily lives.

The film is a little reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window with a window to the outside world. As a thriller, they differ drastically with the personal involvement of Rachel Watson, the protagonist. Because of her entanglement with two households, she is not a true objective observer to the two houses along the railway route, embodiment of perfect and imperfect marriages. With her alcoholic blackouts, she embarks on more strenuous adventures than L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies does in Rear Window.

In general, people dislike replacing one geographical location with another when remaking a foreign film for domestic assumption. In doing so, they are afraid of losing unique exotic flavor. One good example is BBC One's Wallander. The winning of a Broadcasting Press Guild Award (Best Actor for Kenneth Branagh) and six British Academy Television Awards has revealed potentials of transplantation, namely, locality and relevancy somehow might be more essential to us sometimes.