STACK January 2017 Issue 147

24 / 68

visit
24 JANUARY 2017
DVD&BD
FEATURE
TateTaylor talks about the challenges of bringing the best-selling
thriller The Girl on theTrain to the screen. Words Adam Colby
With its time-jumping
structure and
multiple narrators,
adapting Paula Hawkins’ best-
seller The Girl on the Train
to the big screen was never
going to be easy. And Tate
Taylor, best known for dramas
such as The Help and Get On
Up , admits the book itself
even had him flummoxed in
the beginning.
“It’s kind of embarrassing,” he
recalls. “I was really busy and I
knew nothing about it. I started
reading the manuscript and my
partner John was reading it at the
same time to decide if I should
do this. I took a break after the
first 40 pages and said, ‘wow...
so this is about a woman with
multiple personality disorder.
She’s Rachel then she’s Anna,
and here’s...’ [And John said]
‘Dumb-ass, those are three
people!’ But the point is, you
really have to look at those dates
in the book and you have to pay
attention.”
The Girl on the Train tells the
story of Rachel Watson (played
in the film by Emily Blunt), a
depressed, alcoholic divorcee
who likes to imagine what life
must be like for a seemingly
perfect couple – Scott and Megan
(Luke Evans and Haley Bennett)
– whom she spies from her train
window every day. When Megan
disappears, Rachel decides
to look into the case, but her
amateur investigation reawakens
dark memories from her old life
with ex-husband Tom (Justin
Theroux), who also happens
to live in the same street with
his new wife, Anna (Rebecca
Ferguson).
Once he had got his head
around the complex structure
of the novel, the challenge for
Taylor was then to find a
way into the story.
“My way into it was
what I like to do best,
which is character and
distilling the writing,” he explains.
“It was having these three leads
who were so broken, and I really
enhanced that and really showed
what that was like and made it
disturbing and raw. I wanted to
do things to make everybody a
possible suspect. I wanted to just
try to always do something to
make someone potentially bad.”
Unlike the book, the screen
version is set in the US rather
than the UK, a decision Taylor
says predated his coming
onboard the project. However,
he doesn’t believe the change in
setting detracts from the story.
“I didn’t think we should
shift it back. And once I [had]
shot all this cool stuff in
the city, I realised it doesn’t
matter where you are. The
movie is in these women’s
heads. I think it serves it more
when I decided to keep Emily’s
accent because she’s even more
isolated and it made me wonder
whether she’s not going home
because she can’t tell her family.
Is she keeping a big secret that
she’s a total disaster? I didn’t
decide to do it, but I think it
works well.”
But while Blunt
retained the accent,
Taylor realised fairly
quickly that other
MEMORIES
OFMURDER
II
F
E
attributes of the character in the
book (Rachel is overweight in
the novel) wouldn’t be possible.
“I could tell there was no way
she could gain weight,” he says.
“I’ve seen her eat, and she’s
like a 14-year-old boy at football
practice!”
TateTaylor directing Emily Blunt
Gone Girl (2014)
Still the best screen
version of a chick
noir best-seller,
David Fincher’s
chilling and darkly
funny tale of marital
discord boasts a terrific
performance from Rosamund
Pike as the missing wife.
Dark Places (2015)
Like Gone Girl, this unsettling
thriller was adapted from
the thriller by Gillian
Flynn and stars Charlize
Theron as the now
grown-up survivor of
a murder spree carried
out by her brother when she
was a child.
Every Secret
Thing (2014)
Based on the novel
by Laura Lippman,
this brooding crime
drama finds jaded
detective Elizabeth
Banks investigating
the kidnapping of a baby and
zeroing on two teenage girls
who have just been released
from juvie for a similar crime.
Side Effects (2013)
Although not based on
chick noir novel, Steven
Soderbergh’s stylish tale
of murder and memory
ticks all the right boxes.
Rooney Mara is the
young woman accused of
killing her husband while under
the spell of drugs prescribed
by her psychiatrist (Catherine
Zeta-Jones).
I wanted to do things
to make everybody a
possible suspect
Femme fatale
flicks that play
tricks of the mind.
CHICK
NOIR
• The Girl on
the Train
is out on Jan 25