Train dreams 2025 Netflix movie review

I know I shouldn’t be watching this kind of movie right now, but it wasn't my intention. This one, Train Dreams (2025), just gets under your skin. And what hits hardest is that sudden, sharp realization of the grace and privilege you have. You look at his life and you just... you breathe a little deeper and think about all the things you take for granted.

The whole thing is set in a very old time, back when life was raw and regulations were thin. It's about this man who didn't even know his mother or father. He was just a soul brought into a community, almost like a piece of property left there because, at that time, when people were born, they weren't put in registers or registered in hospitals. He was just... there.

He lived that lonely life, never knowing where he came from. He had to figure it all out, fending for himself, and he grew up working as a log man. Cutting wood, selling wood, carrying wood from the mountain—the heavy, back-breaking work of a laborer just making his own way. He was making money from day one, grinding it out, until he met this one girl. And like a switch flipped, he fell in love. She was the one who pushed him to start their life together. They got married, they got a house, and things were good.

But his work was far. He had to travel away for a few days, get back home, and then go again. That was their rhythm. Goes for a few days, gets back home. Goes for a few days, gets back home.

It's that rhythm that leads to everything. His wife got pregnant, and they had a baby girl. And with the kind of work he did, both of them got worried. He was going to miss her growing up. He wouldn't be a part of the child's life.

So they had a plan, a perfect little dream: they would get some land. She would plant on it to multiply their income, and then he would eventually join her as a farmer, and he wouldn't need to travel for work anymore. It was just one last trip. He needed to go out to work this last time, and then he would come back, and they would start their life together, fully, without the distance.

And then it happened. While he was away, a fire broke out in the village. Some areas were consumed, and his house was part of it.

He was just getting off the train—that Train Dreams moment—and he ran straight to his home. He couldn't even get into the place; it was already consumed by the fire. He tried his absolute best to look for his wife and daughter. He didn't see them.

He wasn't sure. Were they dead? Were they alive?

He kept searching, and then he made that heartbreaking decision: he decided to stay right there. He stayed on the land, camping out, just hoping, hoping that his wife and his daughter would eventually come back. He stayed through the winter, through the summer.

He had this one friend—a kind guy who owned a store where they bought simple things like milk and soap. He was so kind, giving him free bread and checking on him.

Then, one day, a dog ran to him. A stray. He took the dog as a pet, maybe to have something warm to hold, still hoping that one day, his wife and daughter would walk out of the woods.

His friend tried to convince him to go to the city, saying the area was too far and remote. But the man just started to build the house again. By himself. Exactly the way he built it when he was with his wife. He built it hoping that maybe, just maybe, when they got back, they would have a place to stay.

He was pouring out his soul, begging God for a sign, a revelation that his wife and daughter were alive.

Sometimes he would just stay alone and cry. That moment when he cried in front of his friend and then apologized for it, because of that mindset that "men don't cry"... man, it cuts deep.

One day, he was sleeping and had a dream. It was a vision that his wife was consumed by the fire. But he didn't see his daughter. So he took that slim hope and ran with it: maybe his daughter was still alive.

Then, he had another dream—so real, it was like he was awake. He saw his daughter come back; she had a broken leg. He treated her and comforted her. And then he woke up, and she wasn't there. It was all in his mind. He was so sad.

He went into the woods and kept looking. Years passed, and he was still looking. He decided to go back to work to get horses so he could start transporting people instead of just logs. He never left that deep, remote bush area. It was his whole world.

One day, he carried a female passenger, who came for nature work in that area; as time went on, they started talking and asked about his family. He told her his family was no more, lost to the fire. And she told him she lost her husband last year.

That moment of vulnerability is beautiful. He tells her the crazy thing: he hears the voice of his wife and daughter playing in the woods, and he doesn't want to look back so they don't go away. He says, "I know it sounds crazy and I never said it to anyone." And she tells him, "It's not crazy." She misses her husband, too, and only people who have not lost somebody really dear to them would not understand this.

After that talk, something shifted. He decided to go to the city. For the first time in years, he saw his face in a mirror. He saw a television and asked a stranger, "What is this?" and they told him it was showing people who went to space. The world had moved on without him.

He saw a place selling cars and those tourist planes for sightseeing. He bought the airplane. Why? Because he had the money. He'd been working and waiting for years, not using the money for anything. He was just using it for himself, which was almost nothing. He hunted, he cooked, and he lived a lonely life.

He started transporting people with that tourist plane. He transported people, and then, quietly, he died in his home. The same home he built for his wife and daughter, the exact pattern of the one that had burned down.

This is where it absolutely crushed my heart: this man never met his wife and daughter again. He never knew if they died in the fire. He had the dream that his wife died, but he wasn't sure about his daughter. He was never sure of anything.

And that imagery... you see the house he built—the one that was supposed to be his happy ending—and after some time, weeds grew and covered it all. This makes me wonder when I go into nature and see those houses built and covered in weeds and trees growing inside, what stories do these places hold?

It just reminds you of the circle of life, doesn't it? And it makes you ask:

• How many people didn't get to meet their parents?

• How many people had unanswered questions?

• How many people didn't get to see the world?

• How many people who were enslaved died in another man's land?

• How many people who got a lot of questions that could have been answered never got the chance?

• How many people who just had memories of the places they come from?

• How many people who do not even have any memories?

It saddens my heart that in this time and day, there are still people who want to hurt people, who are mean. Look at this man! He waited. Do people still have this kind of love? I just know in my heart of hearts, I'm that kind of person who has this kind of love. I cannot go without answers.

How do you even make a conclusion in your mind when you don't know if they are alive or they are dead, when you don't know what is happening? It's deep.

This must have been a beautiful book that was written. It really touched my heart, just like the movie Amber Alert.

When you watch the movie, the graphics, the way that house is eventually swallowed by the weeds when he leaves it... it just shows you that at the end of the day, it's vanity of vanity. Those things that you hold so dear, which you carry so much love for, which you want to pass down to generations... it's still vanity. Anything can happen.

It makes me realize... I can't tell you how many people never got to see their parents. And sometimes I'm complaining: "Oh, my dress is not okay," or "I want to eat vanilla ice cream," or "The room is so warm." There are people who never even got the luxury of seeing their parents, who never even got the luxury of seeing where they came from.

Do you even understand the depth of this movie? The certainty of life that can consume one when they don't know or have an answer.

You should think deep and ask yourself, "What is in this world?"

Train Dreams is a moving, deserving tribute to the lonely and the lost.

Role/Name Used in Movie	Real Name of Actor/Actress	Crew Role	Real Name
Robert Grainier (The Log Man)	Christian Bale	Director	Andrea Arnold
The Wife	Carey Mulligan	Producer	Graham Broadbent
The Daughter (Unnamed)	Elsie Fisher	Screenwriter	Jane Campion
The Kind Store Owner/Friend	Bill Murray	Cinematographer	Roger Deakins
The Female Passenger	Jodie Comer	Film Editor	Lee Smith
---	---	Composer	Max Richter

Do you ever find yourself grappling with life's big, unanswered questions, especially those connected to loss or major life events? I have had this question silently and never told anyone: My question is about my late sister and whether she found peace in the afterlife (heaven). I'd be grateful to hear if others share similar, deeply personal questions they wish they could have answered.