‘The Girl On The Train’…An atrocious adaptation, that is just terrible writing, poor acting, and dreadfully boring.

Spoilers Ahead…

Netflix India’s latest offering, The Girl on the Train, directed by Ribhu Dasgupta and starring Parineeti Chopra, is a shriller, more muddled, and utterly unwatchable form of the 2016 adaptation (starring Emily Blunt). While the latter wasn’t anything to write home about (the characters were flat and the mood was too calm and composed for a mystery) but against the Hindi adaptation, it at least stayed true to the source material’s contents and themes.

The Hindi adaptation in response to this, I suppose, dials everything up to a hundred. Mira Kapoor (Parineeti Chopra) the alcoholic protagonist now has short-term amnesia too, courtesy of an accident (which is one of the many unnecessary additions implemented into the source material). She is always screaming or bawling out her feelings. And if you couldn’t catch onto her suffering from that, her eyes are always smudged (impeccably, of course) with kohl and has three songs to cry in the background of, while walking the streets of London.

Dialogues are just mouthed. The plot moves lethargically from one point to the next and the actors look like they rather be doing something, anything, more valuable with their time. As I sat through this movie (for one and one reason only — my sweet, precious blog) here are some questions that gave me some distraction, entertainment, some solace during this ordeal:

• Are the British police allowed to slap suspects in a murder investigation?
• Are only detectives of Indian origin appointed cases involving Indians?
• Why is a female detective listening to a woman apologise in place of the man who assaulted her, citing that it was her fault for leading him on?
• How can a potential murder suspect (and civilian) walk in and demand to see the CCTV footage of the railway station near the site of the murder?
• Why does the police reveal classified information of a murder investigation to a suspect?
• Where is the chaos (in the background) after Walter is run over by a car, in broad daylight, on a main thoroughfare?
• Where is Mira riding the train to, if she lives and works in London?
• If Mira’s phone is with the police, and she is calling Shekhar (Avinash Tiwary) from Walter’s phone, why does his phone still reflect her name, when ringing?
• Why does Shekar hit Mira right outside his boss’s house, in full view of everybody at the party?
• Why is sentimental music being played over the scenes where Meera discovers that she was being gaslit by Shekhar? It is a shocking revelation (it could have been with a well-written script), but the moment is completely watered down with the inclusion of a song.

Now, I am all for a filmmaker’s own vision and interpretation when adapting from a popular source material, but the makers of this adaptation completely missed the gist of the original. I am well aware that Indian adaptations (or remakes) of any foreign film rarely pan out well, but I was really looking forward to this one. For a mainstream Bollywood film, with a mainstream actress, to showcase a story where the protagonist is not only a woman but also a divorcee, an alcoholic, infertile, and out of job is something rarely ever seen. Add to that the supporting characters, of Megan who has a baby at seventeen, and Anna who has an affair with a married man with no qualms about it, are a novelty in Bollywood.

The novel by Paula Hawkins is quite unique for a murder mystery in that the mystery isn’t being solved by a member of the law enforcement nor a Miss Marple type figure, renowned for her mystery-solving abilities. Rachel (one of the three narrators) isn’t even remotely related to Megan, yet she obsesses over her disappearance — “I am interested, for the first time in ages, in something other than my own misery. I have purpose. Or at least, I have a distraction.”

As a person with neither the jurisdiction nor skills, not to mention, the inability to stay sober, Rachel’s narration is filled with a lot of holes, and a lot of wringing of hands, as she relies mostly on the news to get the information regarding the case. She doesn’t much solve the mystery, as she does remember the crucial memory that helps to reveal the killer (the 2016 adaptation does this part well by having Martha talk to Rachel, which I think worked better for the screen).
I am not going to lie that I enjoyed the book. It is only in the last fifty pages or so, when all the pieces start coming in together, that I sat up and took interest. But I did believe that the book would make for a good adaptation, not only in English but in any language and set in any country. The girl on the train could be anyone, anywhere, and as we don’t get physical descriptions of most characters except for Anna and Megan (who are described to be small-sized and blonde), they could be played by anyone. The plotline is also universal, openly discussing many of the issues faced by women such as feeling insecure, inadequate, when unable to have children or the pressures to have them, the expectation to give up your career after marriage, emotional abuse, domestic violence, mental health and gaslighting, all disclosed through its three female narrators, giving the novel a very distinct feminist voice.

The Hindi adaptation never utilizes or considers any of these points. The movie never establishes Mira’s obsession with Nusrat (Aditi Rao Hydari) and never mentions that she lives two houses from her ex-husband’s house. It doesn’t establish Mira’s envy of Shekhar and his new wife (in the novel, Tom and Anna have a baby, reinforcing to Rachel that it was her fault for not being able to bear a child, and thereby the reason her marriage broke). Without this obsession being explained properly, it becomes extremely difficult to understand Mira’s obsession to find Nusrat’s killer. Instead, it adds a private investigator, a parallel track of police investigation, an ex-boyfriend for Nusrat, a therapist for Mira, a new twist villain, all of whom do nothing to enhance the story, but collectively bring it down.
The movie also changes a lot of the settings. Rachel and Scott (here Mira and Arjun) often met at his house. It is the place where one is supposed to feel safe but Megan, Anna, and Rachel, all are constantly monitored, cheated, and hurt at home. By shifting these scenes outdoor, all this symbolism is robbed.

The Parineeti Chopra of Ishqzaade, Ladies vs Ricky Behl, Hasse Toh Phasse is long gone, and Chopra sadly is one of the weakest aspects of the film. Naturally, the haphazard script is to blame, but Chopra plays Mira as someone vindictive than someone to feel sorry for and root for. You can see the efforts of the makers to make her look cool, no manner how depressed or lonely she is, like smashing Shekhar’s car when drunk (which totally disrupts the argument that she is not violent when drunk and that Shekhar had been lying to her), walking around London in slow motion, having a meltdown, and not thwarted by alcoholism and amnesia when the plot needs her to and start solving everything on her own.

Neither is this movie a good adaptation nor is it a good, entertaining mystery on its own. It is just a complete and utter mess and the fact that it’s on Netflix means that we are now airing out our dirty laundry in front of the whole world.