Dream a little 'Train Dreams' of me

One of my favorite types of movie is one that shows you beauty and brutality as a means of perspective-setting. Clint Bentley's Train Dreams, which has been on Netflix for a few weeks now, is one of those films. It's exceedingly bleak for a long stretch, but throughout, the movie is one of the most gorgeous and sumptuous I've ever seen.

Bentley wrote the movie with Greg Kwedar, with whom he has an interesting relationship: the pair co-write movies and then alternate directing them. (I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the DGA's convoluted and arcane rules about how infrequently they deign to bestow a joint "directed by" credit, but I also don't actually know anything about Bentley and Kwedar.) The movie, based on a 2011 novella, tells the story of Robert Grainier, an orphan from Idaho at the turn of the century, who grows up, finds love, works on the Great Northern Railroad, and experiences grandeur, happiness, and tragedy in something close to equal measure. The movie spans 80 years of Robert's life in 102 minutes, and it's probably the most visually beautiful movie I've seen in years.

The richness and depth of the many forests where Grainier works as a logger are breathtaking, as are the vistas of his homestead and the other locales to which he travels in the name of building a better life for his family and, eventually, learning how to be okay with sadness and regret.

Joel Edgerton is great as Grainier, but William H. Macy truly steals the show in a small part as Arn Peeples, and although this year figures to be absolutely stacked in the Supporting Actor category, it's possible this may finally net Macy that acting Oscar that has long eluded him. (It's also striking to see Macy, a man who has looked 55 for the past 30 years, to look his age of 75 now. In fact, I initially thought another director had smartly pegged Tom Waits to tackle another acting role.)

Train Dreams reminded me a lot of Kelly Reichardt's fantastic First Cow, not just for the time period and gorgeous, forest-based cinematography, but also due to its tone of "profoundly sad and weary, yet hopeful." There is so much beauty around us all of the time, despite the world doing its level best to wear us down into nubs and make us despair.

I hesitate to say more about Train Dreams. Not because I'm afraid of giving "spoilers" – if you've heard about this movie, you probably know what it's about – but because it's more of an experience or a tone poem than I can really do justice by breaking down its finer points. It has some genuinely very funny sequences, some tremendous camerawork, and scenery that will knock your socks off. It also has dogs, if you're into that sort of thing.

I really recommend Train Dreams, but only if you're prepared to feel despair for a big chunk of it. It's far from the bleakest movie I've seen – probably not even in the Top 20 in that respect – but it's not an easy hike. It's all worth it in the end, though, or at least it was worth it for me. It's absolutely in my top films of the year, without hesitation, and we're really getting into Great Fucking Movie Season.

More Great Fucking Movies next time! Stay tuned.