You trace every inch of skin, morning dew clinging to the crevices of your fingers. Your hair, sprawled like candlewax across the soil, digs roots into the earth to entrench your existence in it forever. You yearn to make your mark, to prove that you were here, to prove that you, in this moment, are alive. Frail grass varnishes the world in vibrant hues. The sky seems so blue you could drink it. The sun sets, and the light of a cabin melts into a prism of hazy tints right in front of your eyes, the world erupting in sweet technicolor that seems to drip from the lips of the clouds. Imprint every inch of it into your mind. Close your eyes to remember. Open to see if you’re correct. Picture it, capture it, remember it, immortalize it.
How do you encapsulate the enormity of life in one hundred and three minutes? How do you convey the beauty, the gravity, the unfathomable pain, the inexplicable joy, the void of grief, the tears of rapture, and all the incorporeal complexities of life into one singular story? “Train Dreams,” directed by Clint Bentley and based on a novella by Denis Johnson, somehow achieves the impossible. The film follows the life of Robert Grainier, an early 20th-century logger on the Transcontinental Railroad, and the tragedies he endures as the world continues to industrialize.
The film, shot in 29 days in Eastern Washington, premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival to nearly universal acclaim. It was subsequently bought for distribution by Netflix and released on the streaming service the following November. It’s difficult to articulate how “Train Dreams” made me feel. Few films have made me sit stagnant as the credits roll, ugly crying into my blanket as blotches of tears pile unceasingly out of my eyes. Some films leave you with a feeling you don’t quite understand yet that reverberates through your bones long after the film ends. It’s a feeling that clings to you, seeping into your skin as you desperately search for its name, your heart aching with either the intensity of comfort or the hollow of desolation. Tears, of either catharsis or profound sorrow, rim your eyes. You rest in a daze of emotional ambiguity, unsure of what you are feeling, but feeling it deeply nonetheless. This emotional feat is one that only “Train Dreams” and a few other films have left me with.
Though by the synopsis alone the film may come off as a “pretentious arthouse film with no plot but critics will go crazy for because it has a different aspect ratio” (to quote my friend verbatim), I would argue that its narrative simplicity allows it to draw in a wider audience than most independent films typically do. “Train Dreams” is simple, yet universally resonant. “Audiences are maybe wired that cinema should be about bigger things like murder and explosions and bigger, spiky, dramatic things,” says star Joel Edgerton; “What Train Dreams sets out to do is to show the majesty of ordinary life.” Though I have some gripes with the “Netflix-ness” of it all, I am happy that the biggest streaming service in the world chose to give a small, low-budget, indie film the visibility it deserves.
One of the first things that struck me when watching “Train Dreams” was how visually striking every frame was. Film critics have long expressed their distaste for how, to put it simply, movies look boring nowadays. Far too many contemporary films have a vapid, grey, sludgy sheen pervading them, which many believe to be caused by the industrial shift from shooting on physical film to utilizing digital formats. Before digital cameras were introduced to Hollywood in the mid 1990s, films were shot primarily on 35mm or 16mm celluloid film, and produced a more textured, vivacious, and scintillating look.
The color bursts off the screen, the images are popping with life, and the vibrancy sucks you in and illuminates you into a whole new world. But nowadays, films seem to favor a flat, damp, insipid aesthetic that makes nearly every one of them look identical and uninspiring.
However, as we mourn the bygone film-camera days of Hollywood, many remain woefully unaware of just how impractical and costly this method of production is. Because film reels have a physical lifespan (the standard length of a 35 mm film reel lasts around eleven minutes), shooting on film requires every single shot to be carefully planned, with performances and blocking needing to be carefully rehearsed due to the limited number of takes that can be shot. Because filmmakers would shoot on an expensive and finite commodity, there is immense pressure on both sides of the camera to make sure every take is perfect. This regimented way of working can limit creative freedom and spontaneity from actors in the moment, as well as add unnecessary pressure to the set.
While I agree that the proliferation of digital cinematography has lessened creative leeway in a film’s visual aesthetics, there are still ways to use digital shooting to create visually striking art. “Train Dreams” has the tangible, grainy authenticity characteristic of the great 35mm films of the past, despite being shot completely digitally. The film’s aesthetic was created through the use of special lenses, prioritizing natural light, and using a 3:2 aspect ratio, with cinematographer Adolpho Veloso stating that he wanted to create a feel reminiscent of early 20th-century photos.
The images are lush and decadent, succulent and tender; the natural light and depth create frames that feel real yet breathtaking, able to capture the raw beauty of the natural world without extravagant flair. The glamour isn’t artificial, it’s imperfect but emotionally striking. The argument that digitally-shot films can’t look as good as those shot on film is complete nonsense — there just needs to be deliberate creative intention put into the visual language of the film. The medium isn’t the problem, the artistry is.
Alongside the gorgeous cinematography of “Train Dreams,” the film tackles a tension incredibly pertinent in a world defined by industrialization and capitalism — the acknowledgement of the beauty of the natural world, coupled with the insatiable need to destroy it. Director Clint Bentley places an intentional focus on nature’s inherent beauty. The film opens on a montage of tree stumps and open fields as narrator Will Patton reminisces on the beauty of the world around him, before immediately cutting to a tree being felled, slowly tipping, until it rapidly crashes down in a violent thud. On this tension, Bentley notes, “I think we feel, as humans, we’re very outside of nature and we kind of float above it and forget how deeply entwined we are with something that seems as far away … There is stitching to everything… Once we start undoing it, we really don’t know what the end result of that is at the end of all of it.” The dichotomy of the old world, with all its natural beauty, and the new world, hell-bent on destroying its ancestor for material gain, underscores the entire film.
Granier himself is the literal manifestation of this tension. Feeling out of place amongst the callous loggers he travels with and baffled by the casualness of violence he experiences on the road, he self-isolates and uses all his might to suppress the horrors of what he unwittingly experiences. He is a man who yearns to be with his family and enjoy the richness of a simple life, yet is always called to be complicit in destroying the world, along with his innocence. In a way, Granier’s profession mirrors mankind’s relentless pull towards exploiting the beautiful things we have. Grainer’s work isn’t a choice but rather a necessity in order to sustain the livelihood of his family, harmful actions have been taken. Similarly, mankind’s inherent capitalistic drive leads us to believe that the natural world must be destroyed in order to usher in this new age of industrialization. One of my favorite quotes from the film is: “a tree was a friend if you let it alone, but the second the blade bit in you had yourself a war.” We are in an unnecessary war with ourselves — is there any chance we’ll surrender?
While I am happy that “Train Dreams” managed to reach a wider audience by streaming on Netflix, there is still a part of me that is irked by its measly theatrical distribution. The film was released in select cinemas on November 7, 2025, before its Netflix release fourteen days later. Two weeks is an inadequate theatrical window for any film, but especially for one with a limited release. I remember scouring Fandango in search of showtimes even remotely close to me, but the closest was over two hours away. Now, as a dedicated cinephile, there was part of me that considered making this trek, but knowing that the film would be available for me to watch in the comfort of my own home just two short weeks later led me to brush the idea off almost immediately. I kick myself every day for being so successfully incentivized to watch something at home.
I’ve now seen the film three times on my own, and after every single rewatch, I find myself thinking, “I wish I could’ve watched that in theaters. I wish I could see those sprawling shots of trees and lakes and mountains and sunsets on the big screen. I wish I could be completely enveloped in the striking beauty of the world — to lose myself in an earth that no longer exists.”
As much as I still adore the film, I can’t imagine how much more my experience would have been elevated if I saw it in a dark room, elbow to elbow with a stranger, eyes stretching the confines of my face in an attempt to soak in everything on screen — to picture it, to capture it, to absorb the enormity of life pouring out from it. Streaming is a double-edged sword, and I don’t even have a definite answer on how to simultaneously ensure accessibility while preserving the theatrical experience, but I really do hope that studios can reach a compromise. Films should require at least a six-to-eight-week theatrical window for those who crave the magic of the big screen, while also utilizing streaming services to reach a wider audience. It doesn’t need to be all or nothing, but the communal theatrical experience is a special thing that must not be erased.
The moroseness thickens; the beauty reaches a boiling point. It drips like wax on your glass heart, breaking it ever so slightly while simultaneously stitching the pieces back together. “Train Dreams” distills the magic and the tragedy of human existence into a manifestation of what it means to be alive. The grandiose of life inside a delicate beating heart. The aching gravity of our lives. The pain of feeling deeply and the solace of intimacy. The majesty of the earth and the stain of human tarnish. It flashes past our eyes as we grasp at its fleeting threads. But if we stop, just for a moment, the beauty is screaming in our faces to notice it, to acknowledge it, to pause for a second and take it in. Picture it. Capture it. Remember it.
