'Train Dreams' review: A towering achievement

WHAT IT'S ABOUT "Train Dreams" tells the story of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a logger clearing forests for the railroad in the early 20th century Pacific Northwest. He lives with his wife Gladys (Felicity Jones) and their baby daughter, Kate, on an acre of land in Idaho, but leaves them for long periods of time to do this grueling work on behalf of American progress.

The Netflix movie from director Clint Bentley (writer of the Oscar-nominated "Sing Sing") adapts a novella by Denis Johnson. It's co-written by Bentley and "Sing Sing" director Greg Kwedar. Co-stars include William H. Macy and Kerry Condon ("F1"), with Will Patton as the narrator.

MY SAY Set amid towering trees and against sprawling skies, "Train Dreams" finds meaning in the story of an ordinary man living an ordinary life.

They don't write poems about people like Robert. They don't immortalize them with monuments. But the story of the United States is in many respects the story of people just like him, trying to carve out a life while bearing witness to history's inexorable advance.

Robert spends these countless hours away from his family, sharing his burden with the other men tasked with the impossible mission of taming the natural world for industry, because he wants what we all want: to make a better world for himself and the people he loves.

The movie is built around the conflict between that fundamental desire and the reality that no matter how much we work, how much we plan, and how devoted we are to making something for ourselves, nature has its own ideas.

Tragedy haunts Robert, as does a deep loneliness that seeps through even in his happiest moments. Edgerton captures those feelings with a performance of understated power and uncommon vulnerability. It's extraordinary work, laced with the recognition that this character is at the mercy of forces that are far beyond his understanding or control. 

Bentley constructs the movie like a dream of a time gone by. It's filled with impressionistic images, with gray natural light and looming shadows, with memories of happy moments seen from a distance, with sudden flashbacks seeping into the present. It jumps into Robert's mind and back again, spanning the years, with Patton's narrator guiding us through it all.

It's the story of a man transformed by his world while being forever unsure of how to find his place within it. It's about the search for peace and happiness and meaning, for the sort of understanding that all of us seek but none of us ever quite find. And it is, at the same time, the story of a country that's forever marching toward the future, rebuilding and redefining itself, even as the voices of its past cry out to be remembered.

BOTTOM LINE This is a great movie, one of the year's best, and it should be seen free of the usual distractions at home. Leave your phone in the other room.