Sundance 2025: Joel Edgerton is Phenomenal in Poetic ‘Train Dreams’
by Alex Billington
February 7, 2025
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” This classic Ferris Bueller quote is actually one of the best to use to sum up this story of a man in this poetic film about time passing. Train Dreams is one of the greatest discoveries from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival line-up. I had a feeling it might be something special – especially as a train lover who enjoys almost any movie that is about or involves trains. I’m lucky to have had a chance to catch Train Dreams, it’s real cinema that is especially powerful if you watch it on the big screen in a theater with an enraptured audience. This is also one of the only films from Sundance this year that made me wonder how they filmed it and how they pulled off these shots – a number of shots involving cutting down trees, building railroads, and a big forest fire are immaculate. It’s not easy to make all of this look so realistic yet everything within this film feels like it’s a lived-in experience taking us back in time to the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries in America.
Train Dreams is directed by the filmmaker Clint Bentley as his second feature film following Jockey a few years ago (which also premiered at Sundance 2021). The screenplay is co-written by Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, the same team behind the Oscar-nominated sensation Sing Sing; it’s adapted directly from the novella of the same name written by Denis Johnson. The film stars Joel Edgerton as an American named Robert Grainier, a rather humble, quiet man who works in hard labor as a logger and railroader up in the Northwest of America. His simple life is spent mostly in the woods, either cutting down trees, sawing them, hauling them, or helping build the railroads as they expand west towards the Pacific. The film spans decades in his life, slowly progressing through time as he meets a woman named Gladys (played by Felicity Jones) and starts a family with her. All the while he continues to work, encountering various men good and bad as they head deeper into the forests to continue cutting down more trees. It’s a beautifully poetic film, taking its time and letting each shot breathe in order to make audiences feel fully immersed in this natural world, and within his life, following Robert as his life changes as time marches on. Ultimately a story about change.
🌲 “If the Lord was a redwood, would you try to cut him down? Or climb up his loving branches and look around?” This quote is from a poem that one of the loggers recites. Train Dream is clearly influenced by filmmakers like Terrence Malick, with the cinematography & storytelling feeling as immersive and evocative as any of the masterpieces in Malick’s filmography. The vivid cinematography by very talented DP Adolpho Veloso is absolutely magnificent. Shot after shot, moment after moment, every single frame of this is awe-inspiring. The score by Bryce Dessner is also tremendously moving and lovely. It’s exciting that a team of fairly unknown filmmakers have created such stunning new cinema – and I’m glad Sundance included this film in their 2025 selection and gave it a chance to be experienced properly on the big screen. Train Dreams could be categorized as “slow cinema” and it might not connect with everyone, but there will be many who do appreciate its poetic storytelling and unhurried pacing. Featuring narration spoken by Will Patton, based on passages from the book, this film makes us contemplate how fast life moves and how little we stop to reflect on how much has changed over the years. Suddenly, before you know it, everything has changed, everything is different, nothing is the way it used to be but you can’t go back. This is how life goes for many.
There are two unforgettably wonderful supporting roles in this film played by Kerry Condon and William H. Macy as people Robert encounters & connects with during his journey through life. Macy plays another old-timer logger who he befriends during his days working out in the woods, and he’s inspired by his love for all of the beauty around them. Condon plays a woman he encounters in his later years, who offers him kindness and connection when he needs it the most as a lonely man. There is also a cute doggie he refers to as “Red Dog” that brings him comfort. Best of all, Edgerton is phenomenal in this – understated and down-to-earth. A fine example of how a performance doesn’t need to be showy or over-the-top to be significant & moving. The last five minutes of this film are a complete knock out – another unforgettable, all-timer end. And they remind me of one my other personal favorites, 20th Century Women directed by Mike Mills. Both films are a reminder that sometimes we really do need to stop and take a look around, take stock of all that we’ve gone through and the many tracks we’ve left on this Earth. This is what a “life well-lived” is all about.
Alex’s Sundance 2025 Rating: 9 out of 10
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Article by:Source: Alex Billington
