The Girl on the Train
Strand Releasing | Release Date: January 22, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Presented with an economy and emotional cool that add to, rather than subtract from, its dramatic impact, The Girl on the Train reverberates with a quiet, seductive power. Read full review
85
NPRMark Jenkins
While the story pivots on an actual girl-who-cried-wolf incident, this elegantly constructed movie is about much more than that. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Given several years’ distance from the media blitz, Téchiné brings clarity, maturity, and perspective to the case while still subtly addressing all the thorny social issues the affair touched off. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Best known for 1994's "The Wild Reeds," Techine has been a director for more than 30 years, and the fluidity of his polished, intelligent, at times enigmatic works make him someone whose films are always worth watching. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne gives a smoldering performance as Jeanne. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
What it's really about - and this sounds so boring, and so nothing, when in fact it's really rather wonderful - is people. Just regular people, a mother and daughter, whose lives are observed with economy and precision, and with an eye for the telling detail and the tense, revealing moment. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
What the film is really about is social embarrassment, and Bleistein's clear-headed, calm understanding that his old friend has a stupid daughter who has caused fraudulent trouble for a great many people. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
A compelling piece of cinema. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterBernard Besserglik
Andre Techine's many admirers will not be disappointed by his latest offering, The Girl on the Train, but they might be hard-pressed to define it. Read full review
70
VarietyRonnie Scheib
From this polarizing lie, Techine fashions a brilliantly complex, intimate multi-strander, held together but somewhat skewed by the central perf of Emilie Dequenne ("Rosetta"), whose radiant physicality threatens to eclipse even Catherine Deneuve. Read full review
70
Village VoiceElla Taylor
For better or worse, there isn't a human experience that French director André Téchiné can resist lathering into a tone poem. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
The film can be described as a character study or a fictionalized slice of terribly real life. Mostly, though, it is an inquiry into the mysteries of other people. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Téchiné has made a half-captivating, half-baffling tease of a movie in which one woman's destructive whim has the effect of making anti-Semitism look like a myth. It's a distortion that Téchiné, with a passivity bordering on perversity, does nothing to dispel. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Téchiné's movies are always worth seeing, and The Girl on the Train, for all its faults, has moments that resonate Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
Although this stylish and ominously paced vehicle starts with a full itinerary, it never makes a vital connection. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Duvauchelle is actually the best thing in the movie. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid Fear
For those of us who’ve been fans of Dequenne since her role as a blanc-trash Belgian waif in "Rosetta" (1999), her subtle portrayal of the pathological perpetrator proves that she’s monumentally talented. Read full review
60
EmpireDavid Parkinson
A smart and incisive look at race, identity and dysfunction in modern French society. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
A movie that, like its title character, is meandering, unstructured and only dimly aware of what it’s doing. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
The narrative lacks a magnetic north; it encompasses so much, and the needle swings from Jeanne’s predicament to her mother’s dismay and to the support that comes from a celebrated Jewish lawyer, played by the ever-compelling Michel Blanc. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Techine glosses over the story’s most potent issue: France’s complicated relationship with its Jewish community. Read full review
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