The Girl on The Train is an Indian Hindi thriller film directed by Ribhu Dasgupta and stars Parineeti Chopra, Aditi Rao Hydari, Kirti Kulhari, and Avinash Tiwary in lead roles. It was released on 26th February 2021 on Netflix.
The story follows a fervent lawyer Mira Kapoor (Parineeti Chopra) who is married to Shekhar Kapoor (Avinash Tiwary) and is getting threats to give up the trial but she is ardent and committed and proves Jimmy Bagga guilty in front of the court. The couple met with an accident where 6 months pregnant Mira faces miscarriage and now she is suffering from Amnesia, as her head got banged in that accident. She is not herself after that accident and miscarriage, she is addicted to alcohol and due to Amnesia, she is not able to remember what she's doing. She's inactive in her work for more than one year and her relationship with her Shekhar is now strained who is now married to Anjali (Natasha Benton).
Mira travels on a train, and through the window she enjoys her world, seeing her husband with Anjali and also a woman in another house, Nusrat John (Aditi Rao Hydari), and seeing her Mira says that she's the most favorite character in her story. She is perfect and living a beautiful perfect life. But Mira panics seeing Nusrat with another man, Nusrat is now ruining her perfect woman image which Mira had in her mind. Mira goes to her house the next day, she sees Nusrat going into the forest, Mira follows her and that's it...the next day, Mira doesn't remember what happened and Nusrat has gone missing. Inspector Zehra Kaur (Kirti Kulhari) assigned as the investigating officer is trying hard to uncover everything and further, we get to see more of the characters and their dark intentions.
Based on the 2015 psychological thriller novel, The Girl on the Train by British author Paula Hawkins has already been adapted into a feature film in 2016 starring Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, and Haley Bennett, which was itself a big mess. It can be considered as an okayish adaptation where the characters and the screenplay felt muddled but had some amazing performances by Emily Blunt and Haley Bennet. Now talking about the Hindi adaptation, it's the same case. But worse.
We see how Mira and Shekhar met, full Bollywood style in a marriage party, where they dance and all. They get married, but that accident and miscarriage, shattered Mira from inside, she finds her bliss in drinking, creating, and living in her own bubble. Watching Nusrat and her perfect world from the train. Everything was going just perfect and then the screenplay starts to stumble as more and more characters enter the story. Trying to fit them somehow, Ribhu Dasgupta created a blunder of incidents where he couldn't seem to be handling the characters well.
Apart from Mira, none of the characters are given sufficient screentime. Some of the characters are just there for the sake of it, let's just put it as they're in the novel. Shekhar's second wife, Anjali is sidelined, whereas she played an important role in the climax as you can watch in the 2016 version played by Rebecca Ferguson. There are some stupid scenes, like when Walter calls and tells Mira to meet him and to bring cash to get the information about what happened in the forest, later we see that same message in a text when Zehra picks up Mira's phone. Some dialogues are blandly copied, like Mira's friend says "Facebook and ex-wives don't make good friends". Even the characters of Dr. Hamid, Piya - Mira's supportive friend, or Anand Joshi - Nushrat's husband, remain untouched, we don't get to see what they're going through. The climax has been twisted here, making this a pure revenge story. The twist was good though but sadly it was too late as the mess is already done.
Parineeti Chopra feels here like a misfit. She is good in some parts I'll say that but she's not strong enough to carry the film on her shoulders as Emily Blunt did. She brought sensitivity and vulnerability to her role and she was breathtaking in every frame with impactful and nuanced performance. But Parineeti looks just bland, disinterested. Her expressions are not at all convincing and rather they are very contrived. Her eyes are doing things differently and she's emoting something...whereas Kirti Kulhari as Inspector Kaur impresses with her solid and confident avatar of a Punjabi police officer and Avinash Tiwary as Shekhar Kapoor is also remarkable as the villainous and evil husband. It's Aditi Rao Hydari who scores the best with her beautiful and surreal portrayal of Nusrat John. She is mind-blowing. Others barely got space to create marks.
The cinematography by Tribhuvan Babu Sadineni is beautiful. The film looks like a Hollywood film, exquisitely shot in London, the camera work is very perfect considering the tone, the thrill and mystery, and the lighting is too good to ignore. The production design by Sunil Nigvekar is appropriate and the background score by Chandan Saxena is good and there are two-three songs that are easily forgettable. The editing is okay.
Overall, The Girl on The Train directed by Ribhu Dasgupta is a mess. You'll not feel emotionally connected to any of the characters and that's solely because of the disorganized writing. Handling so many characters in a mystery thriller is not easy and this is where it fails. Parineeti's clumsy portrayal of playing a woman suffering from Amnesia is like a body with no soul. It tries to build a mystery which here turns out to be a revenge thriller. If you have watched the 2016s The Girl on The Train, don't watch this one. Those who have not seen, they can, but you'll be puzzled and lost amid the story.
Rating:- 2/5
Now streaming on Netflix.
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