What is life? What kind of man or woman do we want to be? Do we enjoy the good times while we are in them, or are we too distracted to live in the moment? How do we deal with the bad times when they fall upon us like a falling tree limb? Do they crush us, or do we find the strength to stand and walk again? Do we play the victim during the hard times, or do we rise above them? Do we approach our place in the world with presumption or with humility?
Overview
I watched Train Dreams (2025) for the second time. I first watched it after reading Brett McCracken’s review of it about a year ago. It unexpectedly struck a deep chord within me then, becoming a favorite movie of the year.
Based on a novella by Denis Johnson of the same name, Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley, tells the story of the man Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), who lived from the 1880s until the 1960s, in the Pacific Northwest, mostly around Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Upon meeting Gladys (Felicity Jones), says the narrator (Will Patton), Grainier “found he suddenly had more interest in church than he ever had before.” Grainier and Gladys would marry and build a home and family. However, Grainier was gone for long stints of time to earn a living as one of the men who helped build America, laying train tracks, cutting trees, etc. And over the course of his lifetime, he would see the world change around him: from the handsaw to the chainsaw, from the locomotive to the airplane.
The movie is about the big themes and questions of life: love and loss, friendship and family, injustice and comeuppance, infrastructure and progress, mystery and wonder, religion and spirituality, grief and tragedy. It is hence equal parts existential and transcendental. It reminds me frankly of the book of Ecclesiastes: “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under the sun”: living, dying, planting, harvesting, killing, healing, tearing down, building up, weeping, laughing, mourning, dancing, etc. (3:1–8).
We find love so that life has meaning. We are proud of seemingly significant accomplishments, only to find they are dwarfed in short order. We witness tragedies, but the ghosts of those tragedies haunt us for years, for decades, to come. We find that animals can become worthy companions and help heal our grief if we would but open our hearts to them. We meet people upon life’s journey who challenge us, even change us, reminding us the world is shrouded in mystery, no matter our efforts to understand its ways.
Arn Peeples (William H. Macy) is one such character in Grainier’s story. Arn is a fellow logger, who functions as a sort of spiritual anchor in the movie. At one point, he tells the loggers the world is a deeply mysterious place and that human beings are not what they sometimes presume themselves to be: “The world is intricately stitched together, boys. Every thread that we pull, we know not how it affects the design of things. We are but children on this earth, pulling bolts out of the Ferris wheel, thinking ourselves to be gods.” We are called to subdue the earth and to rule over its creatures (Genesis 1:28), but we should not presume beyond our station, and we should exercise our dominion with care and reverence.
Themes
A Time to Marry: I appreciate that Train Dreams honors the marriage of man and woman. “All of a sudden, life made sense to Grainier,” says the narrator after Grainier and Gladys marry, “as if he’d been pulling hard the wrong way and was now turned around and headed downstream.” While God calls some people to singleness, He calls most to marriage. It is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). Marriage is one of His great gifts through which the world makes sense, through which men and women inspire and expand one another.
A Time to Struggle: To be sure, marriage is not always easy, but the struggle can be good. “Money was tighter for them [the Grainiers] than it ever had been,” says the narrator. “And though he didn’t know it then, he would always look back on this time in his life as his happiest.” Sometimes we look back, after time has passed us by, only to realize our poorest moments were our happiest. Philosophers and theologians have known for millennia the key to happiness is not in wealth or power or pleasure or glory. It is in virtue: in helping your wife around the house; in exploring the woods with your child; in kindness and laughter and service.
A Time to Work: I also appreciate that this movie honors people our society tends to ignore: bridge builders, construction laborers, loggers, lumberjacks, railroad workers, repairmen, small business owners, etc. Part and parcel of this point is also its depiction of masculinity. Grainier is rugged and hardworking, not frivolous or lazy. He works with his hands and builds things, yet he is not vainglorious. He is rather quiet, even stoic at times, but appropriately vulnerable. Arn, too, is rugged and hardworking. He tells stories and shares wisdom. He ponders the deep things of life: the rhythm of the world, the age of the trees, the health of men’s souls.
A Time to Reflect: I also like this movie’s reflection on old things. For example, the narrator, referring to the old world, remarks, “Even though it’s been rolled up like a scroll and put somewhere, you can still feel the echo of it.” History matters; traditions matter. Arn mentions old trees that were “saplings when Jesus was walking the earth.” We are but a handbreadth, a blade of grass, a vapor (Psalm 39:5; 103:15–16; James 4:14). Claire Thompson (Kerry Condon), a character who works in forestry, states similarly, “The world’s an old place. Probably nothing it hasn’t seen by now.” There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). We think ourselves novel, innovative, advanced, but we show our presumption, our impudence.
A Time to Grieve: We are not the masters of the world; we are not even the masters of our own fates. “I’ve seen bad men raised up,” Arn says at another point, “and good men brought to their knees.” Sometimes the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer (Psalm 73:3; Ecclesiastes 7:15). Sometimes life is not “fair.” Sometimes death comes upon even good people—uninvited, unannounced.
Grief is a bitter foe, yet hope may remain. Claire explains, “In the forest, every least thing is important; it’s all threaded together so you can’t tell where one thing ends and another begins—if you really look at it. The insects you can’t even see play a role as vital as the river. The dead tree is as important as the living one. There must be something for us to learn from that.” Even death, as bad and as sad as it is, can teach us something, if we have the eyes to see it.
Technical Considerations
Train Dreams was deservedly nominated for Best Picture, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Music (Original Song), and Best Cinematography at the Academy Awards.
The older I get, the less likely I am to watch movies over again. Increasingly, I find that most of them do not warrant that kind of attention. But along and along, some do. This movie is one of them. One of the benefits of watching a movie over again is the experience of appreciating how individual scenes fit within the overall narrative. On a first viewing, the narrative drives you along; but on a second viewing, you already know the narrative, and certain scenes hit harder because you see more clearly how they fit within the whole in terms of foreshadowing, significance, etc. This phenomenon is a testament to the screenplay.
The acting in this movie is also noteworthy, especially Joel Edgerton, William H. Macy, Kerry Condon, and Felicity Jones. The cinematography, too, warrants mention. Train Dreams is simply beautiful to look at, from the tracks to the trees to the rivers to the fields. One shot that stuck with me this go-round, which is included several times, points the camera up from the ground, past the massive trees, into the infinite sky above. The shot prompts the viewer to ask: What is the significance of man in the great, big, wonderful world? Indeed. Yet God has crowned him with glory and majesty (Psalm 8:5).
Conclusion
I stated above that Train Dreams is about the human experience: about marriage and work and friendship and loss and wonder and grief and renewal. It sits with you; it prompts reflection in you. It invites you to live a life worth living, through its happy times and its sad times, even when, as one character says, “Sometimes it feels like the sadness is gonna eat me up.” Train Dreams is not the movie for you if you want cheap sentimentalism or mindless escapism. But if you want something real and substantive that offers hope and meaning amid the difficulty, this movie is worthwhile.
“You hear that?” asks Arn. “Beautiful, ain’t it? Just beautiful.” “What is?” returns Grainier. “All of it,” says Arn. “Every bit of it.” Life is hard and long and wearisome; life is “full of trouble” (Job 14:1). But in the end, it is also beautiful.
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