'The Girl on the Train' is graced with a sensitive performance by Emilie Dequenne in the lead role as Jeanne. As her story unfolds, it reveals how life's apparent randomness conceals deeper patterns. At the outset, Jeanne is a roller-blading enthusiast living with her mother in the suburbs of Paris. Looking for work, Jeanne applies for a position with a Jewish lawyer, Bleistein, a former admirer of her mother's - but she prepares badly, tells fibs and is caught out. After this setback, Jeanne impulsively hooks up with a roller-blading tattooed wrestler, Frank, and they soon become lovers.
Some time later a friend of Frank's asks the pair to house-sit an apartment above his electronics business while he's away on vacation. Unknown to Jeanne, the business is a drug-dealing front and Frank is in on the deal. Before too long, Frank is seriously wounded by a buyer, and as a consequence the two lovers are both arrested. Despite facing a long sentence, Frank convinces the police of Jeanne's innocence - but blames her for his bad luck and coldly ends their relationship. Jeanne's response to this rejection is somewhat extreme. She gives herself some shallow cuts and daubs a Nazi swastika on her body in a mirror, before claiming that she'd been mistaken for a Jew, and attacked by some anti-semitic thugs. Her story creates a press sensation, but soon falls apart when the police scrutinize her account. Jeanne stubbornly refuses to recant, so her mother contacts Bleistein to help clear up the mess. The two women pay a visit to the lawyer's country home, and after a stormy night of self-examination, Jeanne decides to face the music - whereupon she receives a light sentence and roller-blades off into an unknown future.
Director Techine punctuates the action with imagery of trains and roller-blades - the trains speeding doggedly through the suburbs on their way to fixed destinations - whereas Jeanne meanders through parks on her roller-blades, her life lacking both direction and goal. 'The Girl on the Train' should be interpreted as an esoteric parable of liberation. Jeanne is imprisoned by time and place, but she's on the verge of freedom. She lives in a world where everybody lies to her for their own convenience or advantage - and her alienation from society is a reflection of her discomfort with its pervasive mendacity. She has become infected with this sickness - and what is destroying her, must be the cure. Using the same strategy as Sarah Woodruff in 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', Jeanne marks herself with blood and a sacred symbol (a Sanskrit swastika) for her rite of passage, and then fabricates an absurd racist assault in order to disgrace herself - knowing she will be disbelieved and dishonored - thereby liberating herself from society's norms. By the film's conclusion Jeanne has swapped roles with the Jewish lawyer - a bourgeois outsider with his family torn apart by disputes over empty rituals - and transformed herself into the wandering Jew of her unbelievable tale. She has been through the fire, acknowledged her mistakes, accepted her penance and is roller-blading through life armed with self-realization. She has vanquished her lower self, and become one of Joseph Campbell's Heroes with a Thousand Faces.
Some time later a friend of Frank's asks the pair to house-sit an apartment above his electronics business while he's away on vacation. Unknown to Jeanne, the business is a drug-dealing front and Frank is in on the deal. Before too long, Frank is seriously wounded by a buyer, and as a consequence the two lovers are both arrested. Despite facing a long sentence, Frank convinces the police of Jeanne's innocence - but blames her for his bad luck and coldly ends their relationship. Jeanne's response to this rejection is somewhat extreme. She gives herself some shallow cuts and daubs a Nazi swastika on her body in a mirror, before claiming that she'd been mistaken for a Jew, and attacked by some anti-semitic thugs. Her story creates a press sensation, but soon falls apart when the police scrutinize her account. Jeanne stubbornly refuses to recant, so her mother contacts Bleistein to help clear up the mess. The two women pay a visit to the lawyer's country home, and after a stormy night of self-examination, Jeanne decides to face the music - whereupon she receives a light sentence and roller-blades off into an unknown future.
Director Techine punctuates the action with imagery of trains and roller-blades - the trains speeding doggedly through the suburbs on their way to fixed destinations - whereas Jeanne meanders through parks on her roller-blades, her life lacking both direction and goal. 'The Girl on the Train' should be interpreted as an esoteric parable of liberation. Jeanne is imprisoned by time and place, but she's on the verge of freedom. She lives in a world where everybody lies to her for their own convenience or advantage - and her alienation from society is a reflection of her discomfort with its pervasive mendacity. She has become infected with this sickness - and what is destroying her, must be the cure. Using the same strategy as Sarah Woodruff in 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', Jeanne marks herself with blood and a sacred symbol (a Sanskrit swastika) for her rite of passage, and then fabricates an absurd racist assault in order to disgrace herself - knowing she will be disbelieved and dishonored - thereby liberating herself from society's norms. By the film's conclusion Jeanne has swapped roles with the Jewish lawyer - a bourgeois outsider with his family torn apart by disputes over empty rituals - and transformed herself into the wandering Jew of her unbelievable tale. She has been through the fire, acknowledged her mistakes, accepted her penance and is roller-blading through life armed with self-realization. She has vanquished her lower self, and become one of Joseph Campbell's Heroes with a Thousand Faces.