The best actors in the business are capable of grabbing a mediocre project by the scruff of the neck and dragging it up to their level, with Emily Blunt trying as hard as she possibly could to single-handedly elevate 2016 murder mystery The Girl on the Train.
Delivering another powerhouse performance, Blunt even scored some awards season recognition for her tour-de-force turn after being nominated in the Best Actress category at both the BAFTAs and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, but it wouldn’t be unfair to say that Tate Taylor’s whodunnit would have sunk without her being there to hold things together.
The star headlined the cast as an innocent commuter and dedicated people-watcher who spies a seemingly-idyllic couple every single day from the window of her preferred seat on the train. However, one day she catches a glimpse of something that looks suspiciously sinister, leading her to take her concerns to the authorities.
Unsure of what to believe, she begins her own investigation into the domestic bliss gone wrong, but soon winds up in a perilous situation of her own making that she may not be able to escape alive. Like most films of its ilk, The Girl on the Train makes less sense as the twists and turns keep progressing, but it did make a whole heap of money at the box office.
Long after hauling in $173 million from theaters, the increasingly nonsensical murder mystery has hopped onto the platform on the Starz worldwide watch-list, with FlixPatrol revealing it to be one of the streaming service’s biggest hits heading into the weekend. Strap in for a convoluted ride, because things get messy in the third act.