The Girl on the Train (2021)

Such an underwhelming experience which got increasingly frustrating as the movie went on. Parineeti Chopra's performance was let down by the script and by the make-up department- seriously, what was wrong with whoever finalised that fake-ass wound?? And if they had written her role better and not made her into the typical Bollywood female alcoholic, this movie could have been a big win for her. I personally thought the vibes really suited her, of a woman who no longer gives a damn, but the script just did not match up. 

Let us address just how bland an actor Aditi Rao Hydari is. She literally had the same expression in every single scene and situation. Was she hungry? Was she scared? Was she sad? Was she tired? Guess we'll just never know. On top of it, she was given way too much screen time and that annoyed me even more. That big name director really needs to stop casting her, so that everyone can finally wake up to how terrible she is at the job. 

Another thing that made annoyed me was the overload of exposition. You had Pari's character literally narrating everything that was happening- hello, we can see?? And the way the characters went into long-winded confessions of all that they had done got real boring real quick, which was undesirable, to say the least. Confessions are supposed to either pique your interest even more or bring you closure, but here, all I felt was boredom. I don't even want to get into all the plot-holes that constitute this movie, because frankly, there are too many. Thanks to the final "twist", the motivations and behaviours of the characters make zero sense. And as for those red herrings that were thrown in to make the movie more clever- I have nothing to say except that it might take another few decades till Bollywood learns the art of making good thrillers. Especially ones where songs don't just randomly appear and completely side-track the rest of the plot.

One last annoying thing- Kirti Kulhari's character was too well-shaven for a Sikh woman. Women belonging to that sect wear their body hair with pride, and it was very off-putting and disrespectful that there was not even the shadow of a single hair on her face. If you MUST have representation, have the decency to do it right. Or at least explain why the character is deviating from the norm. This shallow "diversity" benefits absolutely no one.

In conclusion, this wasn't a "review" as much as a list of the things that annoyed me the most about this movie. And well, it is what it is. 

PS- someone please explain to me why this movie was set in London? A proper Indian adaptation would have been interesting to see, now it's just another example of a foreign country being populated by South Asians who all understand Hindi. Oh no, it's not just South Asians who understand Hindi- it's the white people too. Maybe this was a subtle satire on post-colonial politics? Guess this is another thing we'll never know.