The Girl On The Train

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So let’s set this thing up properly, shall we? I haven’t read the Paula Hawkins novel that this film is based on. From all accounts, it’s a perfectly entertaining li’l potboiler. I have watched the 2016 Hollywood adaptation starring Emily Blunt, though. From what I can remember – and it’s not a lot – it wasn’t much better than a “meh”. Not amazing, but also definitely not total trash.

So when I found out that there was a Bollywood adaptation coming with Parineeti Chopra in the lead, I wasn’t too excited either way. It probably wouldn’t be great, but it also probably wouldn’t be worth Vigil Idioting. I mean, there were already two not-worth-nitpicking interpretations of the story for them to draw on, right? But then I actually watched Netflix India’s latest offering this past weekend and, hoo boy!

Here’s the thing – both film adaptations have basically the same runtime. This Bollywood one, however, somehow also crams in four songs, including one whole Punjabi wedding number. Turns out, they couldn’t help but remove & tweak & add their own desi twists to large chunks of the story. And, lemme tell ya, there are more than a few nits I have to pick with it now! Like the Hollywood version, it’s not amazing. Unlike the Hollywood version, though, it does come quite close to total trash.


This recap was brought to you by our supremely super producers Pooja Shah and Saumya Shukla.

And, as ever, all my love & gratitude to some of our fantabulous members:

The Marvelous Ms. Malavika Sasikumar
The bright & sunshiny Rashmi Daryanani
The always nifty Nihas Basheer
That shiny saint, Shweta Narayan
Promising Young Woman, Priya Vikram
And the ever angelic, Anahita Daver


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4 thoughts on “The Girl On The Train

  1. Dude it’s not half as bad as you are trying to make it look like, nice strip in general but too harsh/negative. Also stereotypes about Bollywood are so boring and cliched, just my opinion, don’t be hurt.

  2. It is every bit as bad. When I watched the movie, I was floored over by how bad it was. I wanted to shout from roof-tops. But hey, it got Vigil Idiot back, and that is the movie’s single biggest contribution to Twitter.

  3. Also why not just set the movie in an Indian city? If the cops, dance teachers, gangsters, psychiatrists & literally all characters are gonna be shown of Indian origin! Mira goes to an AA like session & starts telling her story in Hindi to the clueless brits in front of her… that’s just funny lol

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