An orphan finds meaning in America’s northwest

The movie “Train Dreams” was made available on Netflix in 2025 and follows fictional railroad and mountain man Robert Grainier over the course of his lifetime. Directed by Clint Bentley who co-wrote the script alongside Greg Kwedar, it stars Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones and has a nice selection of stars who play major and sometimes minor roles The cinematography took place over a 30-day period and is nothing short of breathtaking.  

 

The time period for this PG-13 movie starts in the late 1800s and begins with six-year-old Grainier and his first memory of arriving by train in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. He remembers nothing of his parents. Over the course of his lifetime, he becomes a logger and works within a few dozen miles of the Pacific Ocean, though he never sees it, and up to 40 miles inside Montana. He develops a sudden interest in attending church when a girl named Gladys, played by Jones, catches his eye, which eventually leads him to form a family and have a daughter on a single acre on the Moyie River. He later rates this as the happiest time of his life, and one he thinks about constantly later on. He hates leaving his family, but the life of a logger and logging season require the man with the ax to be there, and he must support them–until the big forest fire happens and tragedy strikes.

 

His life up to that point is one of hard work. He is a kind man, and he does his best to avoid violence, despite the kind of work he does and the strength in his hands. He remarks how different each of the men he works with is while clearing trees for the railroad; much of the movie is his reflections regarding those men. William H. Macy of Fargo fame plays a refreshing role as a world-wise explosives expert. Clifton Collins Jr. is one of my favorite actors: He’s in this movie for less than a minute as a man who lay dying and begs a small drink from a flask hidden in his boot. Rainier also befriends a Chinese man working among the loggers who, because it is during WWI and America is at war with China, is grabbed by the other loggers and thrown off a bridge to his death. During the murder, Grainier attempts to protest, calling out, “What’s he done?” He receives no reply and sees the Chinaman’s ghost for the rest of the movie.

 

There is minimal dialogue in this film, yet Edgerton successfully conveys a tone of pain and sadness. It’s as if he is wearing this movie and we’re simply watching him walk around in it. There are a few notable quotes, even though all the dialogue is quotable. Old logger's quote: “A tree is a friend if you leave it alone. If it touches a blade, it becomes a war, and the tree a killer.” Grainier has trouble finding meaning to his life because of all the pain he feels until a lady tells him, “In the forest, the dead tree is just as important as the live one.” As he provides the narration for the film, Will Patton uses his voice in a comforting way.     

This movie did well enough at the Sundance Film Festival that Netflix now streams it. On average it has received 8 out of 10.