Clint Bentley’s second feature, Train Dreams, is a quitely meditative chronicle, an ode to humanity in celebrating the life of an ordinary man, whose existence is seemingly undistinguished, but is actually replete with all kinds events, big and small, negative and positive.
Grade: A-
Bentley co-wrote the textured screenplay with Greg Kwedar, based on Denis Johnson 2011 novella.
The film stars Joel Edgerton in a soulful, career-defining performance, aided by support from a distinguished ensenble headed b Felicity Jones, Clifton Collins Jr., Kerry Condon, and William H. Macy.
The film recounts the life of Robert Grainier in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, from his arrival in the area on the Great Northern Railway as an orphaned child.
Dropping out of school, he spends his younger years without much ambition or purpose–until he meets and marries Gladys Olding. Thereupon, he builds a log cabin along the Moyie River, where the couple raise their daughter, Kate.
To support hs family, he takes to railroad construction for the Spokane International Railway. In the process, he witnesses a Chinese worker thrown off a bridge by white workers, and begins to be haunted by visions of the man, and dreams of himslef being struck by a train.
Robert later takes up seasonal logging work, which takes him away from Gladys and Kate for long periods. Along the way, he witnesses more tragedies. One worker is killed by a vigilante avenging the murder of his brother; other workers are killed by a falling tree, their graves marked by boots nailed to a tree. His fellow logger, Arn Peeples, is killed by a falling branch.
Robert tries to take up work closer to home, but struggles in the post-World War I economy force him to build a lumber mill so that he can stop logging.
When Robert returns from his final season of logging, he discovers the cabin destroyed in a wildfire, with Gladys and Kate missing. A despondent Robert rebuilds the cabin, with help from his friend Ignatius Jack.
As Robert returns to logging, he feels out of place amid new technology and the company of younger, rougher men, which motivates him to stop. Taking a job as a carriage driver for townspeople, he meets Claire Thompson of the US Forest Service, who encourages him to go on.
Robert continues his routine walks through the woods, which enables him to feel the spirits of his wife and daughter, hoping not to drive them away. One night, he believes he sees an injured Kate return to the cabin, with him tending to her wounds, but after a night of dreams, he awakens to no sign she was ever there. Even so, he determines to continue living in the cabin just in case she ever returns.
Years go by, and the world around the now aging and weathered Robert is changing. Riding the Great Northern into Spokane, he witnesses on TV John Glenn’s flight into space.
The film ends on a spring day, when Robert flies in a biplane. As the plane loops and circles in the air, he recalls sights and sounds of all the people and places throughout his life.
The narrator (played by Will Patton) then informs the viewers that Robert died in his sleep in the cabin in 1968, leaving no heirs and no legacy. But, on that spring day in the plane, “as he misplaced all sense of up and down, he felt, at last, connected to it all.”
Train Dreams has been compared to the work of Terrence Malick, and Bentley himself has desribed Malick as “one of the greatest filmmakers to have ever lived.” Bentley has has also cited Jules et Jim and Y Tu Mamá También as key influences on the film’s use of third-person narration.
Watching Bentley’s elegy for a life and country that America used to be, and the need for deep connection between humans and nature and humans and time (and memory) brings to mind other contemplative films such as “Wild,” “Into the Wild,” and, of course, Malick’s “Tree f Life.”
The on-ocations shooting included Snoqualmie, Spokane, Metaline Falls, and Colville. Although Bentley and ace cinematographer Adolpho Veloso considered shooting on film, the tight schedule (29-day) made it impractical; as a result, it was shot digitally.
Bentley has said that only a few trees were felled during the shoot; scenes depicting characters cutting into a tree, used an artificial prop constructed from wood and fiberglass, with visual effects applied to resemble a full-sized tree.
Will Patton provided the voiceover for the film. He had also previously narrated the audiobook of Denis Johnson’s novella.
Nick Cave’s song “Train Dreams,” recorded for the film, was not included in the version shown at Sundance, but it was added in subsequent releases.
Train Dreams premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Fest, after which Netflix acquired distribution rights. The film was released in select theaters on November 7, 2025, before streaming on Netflix globally on November 21.
While maintaining an intimate emotional subtlety, Train Dreams takes on mythic proportions by blendng the idyliic as well as the morbid dimensions of eveyday life.
Though not intended as a sentimental melodrama (which it could have been in the hands of other directors), Train Dreams is nonetheless life affirming. It suggests that each and every life counts, even if an individual leaves no legacy, no descendants, and no priperty. Human existence, with all the things that are inevitaby involved– death, loss, grief, survival, and above all interconnectedness–is what matters the most.
Cast
Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier
Felicity Jones as Gladys Grainier, Robert’s wife
Clifton Collins Jr. as Boomer
Kerry Condon as Claire Thompson, a forestry services worker
William H. Macy as Arn Peeples, an explosives expert
Chuck Tucker as Silent Man
Rob Price as Curious Logger
Beau Charles as Young Logger
Paul Schneider as Apostle Frank, a talkative logger
John Diehl as Billy, an old logger
Alfred Hsing as Fu Sheng
Nathaniel Arcand as Ignatius Jack, a storekeeper and Robert’s friend
Johnny Arnoux as Kootenai Indian
John Patrick Lowrie as Mr. Sears
Will Patton as the narrator
