SUNDANCE: ‘Train Dreams’ Is A Masterpiece Of Intimacy And History

Based on Denis Johnson’s novella of the same name, Train Dreams (2025) takes audiences deep into the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a day laborer building America’s railroads and logging across the country at the start of the 20th century.

Directed by Clint Bentley and cor-written by Bentley and Greg Kwedar (Bentley’s co-writing partner on Sing Sing), we step into Robert’s life as he experiences profound love, shocking defeat, and a world irrevocably transforming before his eyes and under his feet. Joel Edgerton’s Robert carries a piece of every person he meets, and the extended cast that brings those characters to life includes Felicity Jones, William H. Macy, Kerry Condon, Alfred Hsing, Johnny Arnouxl, and Clifton Collins Jr.

This is a movie about Robert. That’s the synopsis. Robert Grainier’s life unfolds amid the shifting American West as it moves from wide-open wilderness to city and road. While America’s changing landscape is an intricate backdrop to the film, it’s the naturalism that Bentley brings to capturing Robert’s life on film and what he and Kwedar do to make it all land within the context of history, but more importantly, through the intimacy of human growth.

When I sat down to watch Train Dreams at nine in the morning, I didn’t expect it to move me to tears. I didn’t know how such a simple movie with such a small synopsis could strike my heart. A period piece that moves through decades, we watch Robert through each season of his life. Robert himself is a man of little words. Instead, Edgerton acts in each scene with a pensive approach, understanding how his stance, gait, and face can pull the audience in.

The easiest approximation that I can find for Train Dreams (2025) is Big Fish, but without the pure magical whimsy. Instead, Bentley constructs sequences and scenes that capture a moment in its stillness, putting the people around Robert in view. Whether it is shoes nailed to a tree or a man posing in the crook of a 500-year-old tree ready to drop, the film’s visual language is striking, beautiful stills that allow the audience to take in the narration. Bentley’s use of stillness is just as impressive as showcasing the physicality involved in the work camps.

Joel Edgerton is at his best in Train Dreams (2025).

A narrator points out intricate details of the world and time as we watch. Small interjections provide subtle background information that adds to the cast of characters, many of whom appear only once or twice. In addition, the narrator provides vital insight into the growing dread and worry in Robert’s heart after he witnesses a hate crime. While I question the inclusion of that moment for so abrasively cutting against the tone of the film so early in the story, its impact constructs a lens through which Robert views the world.

Joel Edgerton is astounding. He is beautiful, kind, vulnerable, and resilient. Robert is a man moved by his empathy. He feels deeply, even when he doesn’t speak. Much of his life is told through narration, but Edgerton’s face holds a wealth of expression. Every crease has a story, and gray hair is a testament to his resiliency. Edgerton’s silence doesn’t mean he feels nothing; it means that when he speaks, he opens up about his pain. It shakes a room.

Co-writers Bentley and Greg Kwedar have shown their ability to showcase masculinity through vulnerability with last year’s Sing Sing, and that care is rooted deep in Robert’s identity. He is a logger. He is around nothing but men for months out of the year. And yet, none of it diminishes his ability to care deeply for the world around him.

Throughout the film, Robert is shown in a near-stoic stare, but it’s not empty; it’s processing. He is who he is because of who he meets, who he loves, and what he loses. To show a man so deeply in love, longing to be a father, it’s clear that Robert lives for others, not the other way around.

Train Dreams (2025) is a gorgeous story of love and loss and, ultimately, just about life. It’s one man’s journey across the decades, and somehow, despite its simplicity, it moves mountains in your hearts. Joel Edgerton carries this masterpiece in history and intimacy with humility and beauty.

Train Dreams (2025) premiered during 2025 Sundance Film Festival.