The movie is simple and well-acted but I have a pretty big gripe about it. Warning, big spoilers ahead.

The majority of this movie is his life after his wife and daughter die in a forest fire, possibly in their home he was trying to get back to. Him questioning whether he could have saved them had he done anything different in his life. I'm sorry but as a father I'm completely out on these types of movies. The very beginning of First Man has Gosling sitting by his daughter's crib who is dying of cancer and he's just waiting for the inevitable, maybe the most gut-wrenching stuff I've ever seen as a parent. I just cannot get to a place where a story with kids, especially young ones, dying is something I can appreciate regardless of the acting, story, or how visually striking the movie is. Joel Edgerton is literally sleeping in the ashes of his burned down home where he wife and daughter likely died. He waits for them to come home for years, they never do. I also didn't understand what was happening with the young woman who ended up in his home with a broken leg who is just gone the next morning and whether it was just his imagination. He understandably never gets over this loss the rest of his life but somehow has some sort of epiphany or sense of appreciation when he's riding in an airplane for the first time? I doubt that man would do anything other than be sad for the rest of his life and if they're trying to express something more profound than that it was lost on me. This movie just makes me mad thinking about what I watched this weekend. Had I known what was going to happen in this movie I would have watched something else.

I'm not trying to invalidate your enjoyment of the film, I'm glad you did like it. I'm sure others will as well but this is just about the definition of a movie I can't get behind. I know this was based on a novel or novella so there's source material but I was not familiar with it.

Just FYI, same writer as Sing Sing but not the same director. The director of Sing Sing is actually an Aggie, and he's only an executive producer on Train Dreams.

Thanks for the heads up, though. I need to check this out soon.

Agree with the OP, it was well done. Makes you think about how you would react to his situation

but not much happens so if your looking for action or any sort of conclusions, look elsewhere

Ah, ok, thanks.


Spoilers isn't working for, so caution if you haven't watched the movie yet....





As for the previous comment, I totally understand your viewpoint. This is not a happy film. I don't think it's mired in darkness. I mean, I've watched some really depressing movies. This isn't one of those. It's more like understated feelings of sadness and melancholy and the main character never quite feels like he belongs to or understands this world, except for those precious few years his wife and child were alive. And maybe the airplane ride at the end of the movie brought it all home to him, at that moment he physically felt like he'd mentally felt his whole life.

I think in the hands of a different director this might have been one of those really depressing movies. But instead it did such an incredible job of balancing out the sadness of his life with the beauty and grandiosity of nature that can humble us when we're feeling so caught up in ourselves. And in the end, for me that keep the movie a pleasure to watch.

This was an extremely depressing movie...but I thought it was great.

It highlighted the beauty of this world with the tragedy of this world, in parallel.

I loved it, but am also reluctant to recommend it.

Fantastic film. This is what Hollywood needs to be making more of. I can't explain why I loved it so much when it isn't about a man that lived a spectacular life or was extraordinary in any way.

I enjoy this <2hr film. Beautifully shot, excellent score, and some great acting. Not a wasted character in my opinion. Some fantastic acting and some very emotional scenes. Love the wisdom found in work, family, existence, and nature that this film explores. Not for everyone, probably won't revisit it, but enjoyed it and would recommend.

This movie is a haunting one with beautiful cinematography, acting, and narration.

It reminds me quite a bit of some films by Terrence Malick, in particular Thin Red Line (which I dislike intently as a movie--by contrast, Malick's Days of Heaven is a masterpiece.)

The greatness of this movie to me are the moments where he makes a connection with others. He is grieving in unimaginable loss alone in the woods and he has two people step into his life to help him overcome his grief. Both are strikingly different from the stoicism and matter of fact way the Native shopkeeper friend of his checks in on him. He acknowledges the grief but says nothing and continues to hunt and somehow encourages him to keep pushing on. The female Forestry worker meets him and they have an emotional connection and share his grief in a womanly way. Both examples incredibly touching to watch.

The girl with the broken leg was a fiction of his imagination. In the book there were legends of a wolf girl in the woods and he had dreams seeing his wife running from the fire holding their daughter and they fall and the wife sets the toddler on the ground before dying. He thought his daughter had survived and gone feral being raised by wolves and that the woman he found and brought into his home was her but it never happened.

Great movie. Definitely meditative and deliberately paced. Gorgeous framing in every shot. Reminded me a little of Perfect Days. Different period, setting, and all of that - but still about finding some connection and value in what is otherwise an ordinary life.