THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN: 2 STARS

In recent years we’ve seen Emily Blunt warbling Stephen Sondheim’s rich “Into the Woods” score, riding a polar bear in “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” and dressed as Princess Diana in the quirky rom com “Five-Year Engagement.” She’s done big budget action, sci fi, period dramas and now she adds Hitchcockian thriller to her list of conquered genres.

In the much-anticipated thriller “The Girl on the Train” she is Rachel, a woman whose life has taken a downward dive since her divorce from Tom (Justin Theroux). Alcoholic, unemployed and despondent, she obsesses about Tom, his new girlfriend and former mistress Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), and the couple’s new baby.

To pass the time on her extended Lost Weekend, Rachel drinks vodka and rides a commuter train from the suburbs into Manhattan, even though she lost her high paying PR job ages before. Sitting in the third car from the front affords her the perfect view of her favourite house. It’s the home of Megan and Scott Hipwell (Haley Bennett and Luke Evans), a good-looking couple with a seemingly perfect life to match their optimistic last name. “She's everything I want to be,” says Rachel of Megan.

One afternoon as Rachel looks out the train window at the Hipwells she is enraged by what she sees. A blur of booze later, she wakes up the next day, hungover and foggy, covered in bruises, to discover Megan has gone missing. Brain blocking memories, she tries to piece together the events of the night before. Enter Mr. Hitchcock.

Based on the Paula Hawkins bestseller—11 million copies sold and counting—“The Girl on the Train” is not so much a psychological drama as much as it is a boozological one. Rachel is hammered for much of the first half of the film, making her an extremely unreliable narrator. What’s true and what’s not? That would involve giving away plot details that are best left unspoiled, but suffice to say that while there are ups and downs, they are more red herrings and misremembered clues filtered through a haze of booze. There are no “Gone Girl” flourishes here, just straight-forward thriller elements banged together to point to an inevitable conclusion.

“Girl on the Train” has some elegant moments, and aspires to be an art house thriller/morality tale—no action, lots of internal dialogue—but to properly tell the story of infidelity and murder, it should have embraced its down-and-dirty summertime beach reading origins.

Rising above the languid pacing and uneventful storyline is Blunt whose gut-wrenching, vanity-free performance carries the movie through its slow patches. She’s a raw nerve and if the movie had followed her lead and been just a bit more bleary eyed and blotchy, it may have been a more effective thriller.

DENIAL: 4 STARS

Based on the book by Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University Deborah E. Lipstadt, the new film “Denial” chronicles a real-life court case that could have made it acceptable to deny the Holocaust.

The action in “Denial” begins with Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) giving a lecture in support of her latest book. In the audience is David Irving (Timothy Spall), a self-taught British historian and Holocaust denier. Because Lipstadt steadfastly refuses to debate deniers, Irving, upset she singled him out in her book as a less than reputable historian, brings the argument to her. He theatrically offers a $1,000 reward for any printed link between Hitler and the Final Solution.

Rebuffed, he launches a libel lawsuit claiming Lipstadt and her publisher are part of a worldwide conspiracy to rob him of his livelihood as a historian. The case, filed in England, left the burden of proof on the accused, Lipstadt. Baffled by the foreign legal system, the American is led through the complicated case by Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) and Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott), the solicitor who handled Lady Diana's divorce. “We have no strategy,” says Julius, “we're trying to box him in with the truth.”

Donations from benefactors like Steven Spielberg paid for the gruelling eight-week, £3,000,000 trial which boiled down to one main question: Is Irving a liar and a falsifier of history or simply a historian who sees things from Hitler's point of view? The stakes are high: If Irving wins, his account of history will be given credence. "The man is a liar and someone needs to say so," Lipstadt says.

For much of its running time “Denial” is a taut court procedural—kind of like the last half of a great “Law and Order” episode—with colourful characters. Weisz, a feisty force of nature amid the more reserved Brits, holds the centre of the film with a combination of grit and concern. Scott is the epitome of the stiff-upper-lipped lawyer but it is Wilkinson who shines, hiding a sharp legal mind behind a grandfatherly façade. As the villain Irving, Spall brings desperation, indignation and condescension to a man who wants respect for his opinions.

“Denial” moves along at a zippy pace, exploring the pertinent details but taking the time to add an emotional wallop with a research trip to Auschwitz. A drawn out ending slows things down a bit in an attempt to add drama to a verdict that is historical record but satisfies both as a precedent-setting slice of legal history and big-screen entertainment.

Rachel Weisz

THE BIRTH OF A NATION: 3 STARS

Out of the Sundance Film Festival, “The Birth of a Nation,” a biopic of slave, preacher and revolutionary Nat Turner written, directed and starring Nate Parker, was being touted as an Oscar contender. It set a record as the biggest distribution deal ever made at the Sundance and won rapturous reviews.

Then the news broke that Parker was accused of raping a drunk, unconscious 18-year-old Penn State University student in 1999. Although he was cleared in a 2001 trial, the alleged victim was so traumatized by the incident that she went on to commit suicide in 2012 at the age of 30.

Word around Tinseltown is that these revelations have torpedoed any Oscar hope the film might have had, but the question is, will Nat Turner’s tale prove more potent than Parker’s own story?

From a young age, Nat Turner (Parker) is told he is a child of God, someone with purpose. Growing up on the Turner plantation, he is taught to read but nonetheless is sent to work as a field hand. As a young man, the seeds of his discontent are sown when he is sold to unscrupulous plantation owners, and sent out to teach the godly value of servitude to his fellow slaves.

“Slaves, submit yourself to your masters,” he preaches. His words make his owner rich and lift some broken spirits, but soon the hypocrisy of his proselytizing seeps in after a series of unspeakable events. He witnesses rape, brutality and after he baptizes a white man he is whipped to within an inch of his life. Beaten but not broken, he decides to fight back. Where he was once a spiritual leader he is now a rebellion chief. “With the help of our father we will cut the head off the serpent!”

It took Parker seven years to bring “The Birth of a Nation” to the screen and his passion is writ large on every frame. He has made an audacious film, a brash epic that borrows its name from D. W. Griffith’s racist 1915 blockbuster.

It is hero Turner’s moral journey from slave to rebellion leader. It’s a coming-of-rage story that spares few details. We are shown the casual cruelty that turned Turner from a peace-loving preacher to a man pushed to violence. On screen Parker is at the centre of the action, appearing in almost every scene and bearing the emotional brunt of the narrative. He is the story’s engine and with an understated, powerful performance he keeps us along for the ride.

It’s the filmmaking that falls short. There are moments of singular imagery—a slow tracking shot of bodies hanging from a tree set to Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit” is unsettling and unforgettable—but Parker has paced the film at a deliberate, monotonous tempo that doesn’t do the story any favours. It feels like a missed opportunity to not build tension, to not allow the remarkable story to lead the way.

Turner was a remarkable man, whose actions led directly and indirectly to the Civil War. Parker fails to fully place the man into historical perspective and by doing so ignores dramatic opportunities.

“The Birth of a Nation” is an important story of a man in an inhuman world. Parker treats the material and the man respectfully but could have used more urgency.

Birth of a Nation

TWO LOVERS AND A BEAR: 4 STARS

The story of two star-crossed lovers on the run from bad memories is at the heart of “Two Lovers and a Bear,” a new film from “Rebelle” director Kim Nguyen. Counselling them is a talking polar bear, a philosophical addition to a movie that is part romance, part thriller and all icy cold isolation.

Set in Apex, Nunavut, just shy of the North Pole, “Two Lovers and a Bear” is the tale of Lucy (Tatiana Maslany) and Roman (Dane DeHaan), angst-ridden lovers, tormented by recollections of their abusive pasts. The mere thought of Lucy’s father inspires panic attacks and Roman finally put his violent father in the rearview mirror by fighting back and leaving home. Still, the thought of it haunts him. When Lucy is accepted into a school program in the south, the pair split, only to be brought back together by tragedy. Together they embark on a journey that forces them to confront their pasts while solidifying their bond.

The emotional stakes rise throughout as Nguyen weaves together magic realism—the silky voice of the polar bear is supplied by Gordon Pinsent—romance and the hard realities of Northern life. It’s an unpredictable story that intensifies with every twist, finding depth as the volatile characters explore the vast white expanse of their home and their innermost fears.

Maslany and DeHaan are an intoxicating combination. Lucy and Roman are strong willed characters -- they have to be to survive the inhospitable cold of their home --but both wear their fragility on their sleeves. Desperately in love, the couple can’t live without one another but, paradoxically, are bad for one another. That contradiction at the heart of their relationship feeds the narrative thrust of the film, binding the story’s mishmash of genres.

“Two Lovers and a Bear” covers the kind of troubled relationship we’ve seen in other indie films—two young lovers battling demons—but Nguyen’s bold use of the setting and the strong, naturalistic and soulful performances at the heart of the film make it quite unlike anything we’ve seen before.