There have been three films and two novels with the title THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN. (There is also a novel called GIRL ON A TRAIN.) The earlier novel was written by my friend Peter Whitehead, but it has never been filmed. The second novel was made into the third film. Of the three films, this was the first, though its title in French was very different, namely LA FILLE DU RER (THE GIRL OF THE R.E.R.). For those unfamiliar with the underground systems of Paris, there are two. The first is the well-known Metro, which goes short hops a few minutes apart. The second is called the R.E.R. It goes for long distances between a few main stops and extends way out to the far suburbs, being a genuine rapid transit system for commuters. So the girl of this story is not really on a train per se, she is merely on a commuter service which starts overground and goes underground when it reaches the centre of Paris. Four years later, a less well known film of the title was made in America, with its action commencing at New York's Grand Central Station. And in 2016, a British film of this title was made with Emily Blunt, which has had a considerable commercial success and is the best known of the three. This one is a brilliantly made film by that old pro, André Téchiné. He directs films as effortlessly as water flows under a bridge. But that is not to say that the film is wholly satisfying. The script is very good, but the story conception is somewhat perplexing, with insufficient background information. Hence it lacks focus, unlike the cameras.The director presumably must have wanted to make a film which remained enigmatic and suggestive, leaving us guessing about the layers beneath. That must have been his intention, and in that he succeeded. But is that really effective? The central character in the film is a very young woman, really still a girl, who is 'all mixed up', to say the least of it. No effort is made to get us to sympathise with her, nor is any made to get us to dislike her. We are meant to be puzzled observers. It is clear from the very beginning that she is wilful, foolish, pig-headed, and astonishingly stupid. She has a vague childlike charm, but she also can snarl and pout at the drop of a hat. Her father was an Army officer who was killed in battle in Afghanistan when she was 5, and she has been raised by a rather aloof mother, played by France's leading ice queen, Catherine Deneuve. Deneuve shows a surprising amount of diffused and unfocused sympathy, clearly trying hard to love her child but finding it difficult. The daughter tells her very sinister drug-dealer boyfriend that she and her mother are so close that they are 'inseparable', but that is merely one of the girl's many disembodied fantasies. She wants to be loved but is not at all discriminating about who might do so. In other words, she is a lost young soul wandering the world, dressed only in a smile. The girl is played to perfection by an extremely talented young Belgian actress, Émilie Dequenne, who at 28 looked and behaved younger. She played Valentine in the 2006 film of LE GRAND MEAULNES. The girl inexplicably goes to pieces and fabricates a sensational tale of having been assaulted by anti-Semites while travelling on the RER. Before boarding it, she had cut herself with a knife to make a gash on her face, cut off part of her hair, and drawn swastikas (as it happens, the wrong way round) on her stomach. She then goes to the police and claims this was all done to her by neo-fascist yobs. This causes a scandal in the press and even the President of the Republic issues a statement of sympathy for her. But then her story unravels when it is realized that she made it all up. She does not appear to realize why she did this, nor can anyone else figure it out. She is not even Jewish. The story is far more complicated than this, and involves penetrating studies of several characters, resulting in a tapestry portrait of some intersecting lives and groups of people constituting a haphazard milieu, all of whom are in their own ways deeply perplexing. So I suppose the director wanted us to know just how strange everyone really is. I believe him.

French screenwriter and director André Téchiné's eighteenth feature film which he co-wrote with French author and screenwriter Odile Barski and French playwright and translator Jean-Marie Besset, is an adaptation of a play from 2007 by Jean-Marie Besset and inspired by real events which took place in France in the early 2000s. It premiered in France, was screened in the French Revolutions section at the 53rd BFI London Film Festival in 2009, was shot on locations in France and is a French production which was produced by producer Saïd Ben Saïd. It tells the story about a woman named Jeanne who lives in Paris, France with her mother named Louise and whom is thinking about travelling to Italy whilst her mother is making other plans for her.Distinctly and precisely directed by French filmmaker André Téchiné, this finely paced and somewhat fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints though mostly from the main character's point of view, draws a multifaceted portrayal of a French daughter in her twenties whom whilst out looking for a suitcase meets a man named Franck, and a son named Nathan whom is caught somewhere between his divorced parents. While notable for its naturalistic and atmospheric milieu depictions, reverent cinematography by French cinematographer Julien Hirsch, production design by production designer Michèle Abbé- Vannier, costume design by costume designer Khadya Zeggaï and use of sound, colors and light, this character-driven and narrative-driven story about lies, misunderstandings and the occasions leading up to a woman's response to learning about the Holocaust, depicts an investigative study of character and contains a great and timely score by composer Philippe Sarde. This reconstructive, quick-witted, consequential and psychological drama from the late 2000s which is set in the capital city of France in the 21st century and where a wrestler falls in love, a separated couple is in constant negotiations regarding their time with their son, the media is reporting anti-Semitic acts and a mother one day recognizes a Jewish attorney named Samuel Bleistein whom she once knew, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, rhythmic continuity, interrelated stories, densely romantic undertones, distinct style of filmmaking and the significant acting performances by Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne, French actors Nicolas Duvauchelle, Michel Blanc and Mathieu Demy, French actress Catherine Deneauve and Israeli actress Ronit Elkabetz. An engagingly conversational, profoundly cinematographic and tangible narrative feature.

This movie is basically pointless. I was drawn in by the storyline only to find that the movie meanders on for some 80-85 minutes or so in the 'les circonstances' except that there really aren't a lot of circumstances that add up to what the protagonist does. Afterward, the protagonist cuts herself a little, draws a few swastikas on herself and says she's been a victim of a hate crime. Her mom knows its not true as her daughter, the protagonist, claims she was attacked because the lawyer Blestein's card was found in her bag (it turns out that Blestein didn't believe in business cards and didn't print any). Then Blestein and the girl's mom try to get the daughter to confess to what she had done. She does, gets a suspended sentence and is seen rollerblading again. What a pointless movie.

I disagree with the negative reviewer, who I think missed the point. This film intentionally avoided telling the viewer what to think about the situation or characters in this film, forcing the viewer to come to his or her own conclusions, thereby provoking a lot of thought and discussion. I saw the film with my Jewish girlfriend, and we had completely different takes on the movie and its central character. My girlfriend thought the movie itself was anti-Semitic for its negative depiction of a broken Jewish marriage-- an impression I did not (and still don't) share.The film, based on actual events in Paris in 2006, is divided into two parts. The first part is entitled "The Circumstances" and tells the story of a 19-year-old girl and the affair she unthinkingly falls into with a young French wrestling star. They end up moving in together and he gets involved with a shady drug business, of which she is unaware. He is stabbed by a drug runner and arrested. She returns home to her mother (Catherine Deneuve). Unable to get a job, distraught over her disastrous relationship, the girl impulsively cuts herself, draws swastikas on her stomach, and tells the police she was attacked by a gang of 6 boys on a commuter train outside of Paris because they mistakenly thought she was Jewish (she is not) on the basis of a business card of a Jewish lawyer she said she had in her purse.The second part of the film is titled "The Consequences." The media pick up the story-- a development she hadn't apparently foreseen-- and her mother asks her friend, the Jewish lawyer, for advice. He advises her to bring her daughter to his country home, where he, his son and daughter in law, and their 13-year-old son, who is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah, are spending the weekend. Everyone at the house seems to understand immediately that her story is false, and they want to minimize the amount of trouble she will be in if she confesses. She ultimately admits that she made up the story and writes out a confession to that effect. The French judicial system lets her off easy, and that wraps up the film.But the viewer is left to grapple with unanswered questions. Why did she make up this story? She doesn't seem to have wanted attention, and seeks to avoid the media, whose interest seems to surprise her. With all its obvious holes and weaknesses, why did the police and the media believe the story? (She is, after all, not Jewish.) The film makes the point that anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise in France. Why then does the media focus on an obviously false report of an anti-Semitic attack in which the victim is not even Jewish? Give this film a chance. The filmmakers could have tried to answer all those questions for us, as most American directors would have done, but instead set their viewers the challenge of answering them for themselves. Ultimately, that decision made for a much more interesting movie-going experience.