Why Train Dreams should win the best picture Oscar

Train Dreams was arguably the lowest-profile of the Oscar best film nominees and might have passed me by if not for a phone call with a friend last year. She had just watched one of last year’s big films—famous names, plenty of hype—and emerged despondent about it and the state of cinema, saying she’d seen only empty provocations.

“I don’t want to sound like a cliche,” she said, “but I believe this was all better in the 1970s!” Train Dreams was one of the few films of the year she had enjoyed. Clint Bentley’s adaptation of the Denis Johnson novella opens with a kindly voiced omniscient narrator, dropping us into Bonners Ferry, Idaho, in the early 1900s and into the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton).

He drifts through his first two decades without much purpose before falling in love with the free-spirited Gladys (Felicity Jones). The film’s meditative pace, often compared to the films of Terrence Malick, is underlined by a gentle score from the National’s Bryce Dessner.

United States, Bonners Ferry, Idaho

train dreams, best picture, oscar nominee, clint bentley, denis johnson, joel edgerton, felicity jones, bonners ferry, idaho, bryce dessner