I know I shouldn't be watching these kinds of movies right now, but I didn't mean to. This, Dream Train (2025)It just gets under your skin. And what hits the hardest is that sudden, acute realization of the grace and privilege you have. You look at his life and you just… breathe a little deeper and think about all the things you take for granted.
It's all set in a very ancient time, when life was raw and regulations were few. It's about this man who didn't even know his mother or father. It was just a soul brought into a community, almost like abandoned property there because, in those days, when people were born, they weren't registered or registered in the hospitals. He was just… there.
He lived that lonely life, never knowing where he came from. He had to figure it all out, fend for himself, and grew up working as a lumberjack. Cutting wood, selling wood, transporting wood from the mountains: the hard, exhausting work of a worker making his own way. He was making money from day one, working hard, until he met this girl. And as if a switch was flipped, he fell in love. She was the one who pushed him to start their life together. They got married, got a house and things were going well.
But his work was far away. He had to travel for a few days, return home and then come back. That was his rhythm. He leaves for a few days and returns home. He leaves for a few days and returns home.
It is that rhythm that leads to everything. His wife became pregnant and they had a girl. And with the kind of work he did, they both worried. I was going to miss her growing up. It would not be part of the child's life.
So they had a plan, a perfect little dream: they would get some land. She would plant in him to multiply her income and then he would eventually join her as a farmer and would no longer need to travel for work. It was just one last trip. He needed to go out to work this last time, and then he would return and they would begin their life together, fully, without distance.
And then it happened. While he was away, a fire broke out in the town. Some areas were consumed and his house was part of them.
I was just getting off the train. dream train moment, and ran straight home. He couldn't even enter the place; It was already consumed by fire. He did everything he could to look for his wife and daughter. He didn't see them.
I wasn't sure. Were they dead? Were they alive?
He kept searching, and then he made that heartbreaking decision: he decided to stay right there. He stayed on the land, camping, with the only hope that his wife and daughter would eventually return. He stayed all winter and all summer.
I had a friend, a nice guy who owned a store where they bought simple things like milk and soap. He was very kind, gave him free bread and looked out for him.
Then one day a dog ran up to him. A stray He took the dog as a pet, perhaps to have something warm to hold, still hoping that one day his wife and daughter would come out of the woods.
His friend tried to convince him to go to the city, saying that the area was too far and remote. But the man began to build the house again. By himself. Exactly how he built it when he was with his wife. He built it in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, when they returned, they would have a place to stay.
He was pouring out his soul, begging God for a sign, a revelation that his wife and daughter were alive.
Sometimes he would just stay alone and cry. That moment where he cried in front of his friend and then apologized for it, because of that “men don't cry” mentality… man, it hurts deeply.
One day he was sleeping and had a dream. It was a vision in which his wife was consumed by fire. But he didn't see his daughter. So he took that small hope and ran with it: maybe his daughter was still alive.
Then he had another dream, so real that it was as if he were awake. He saw his daughter return; she had a broken leg. He treated her and comforted her. And then he woke up and she wasn't there. It was all in his mind. I was so sad.
He went into the forest and continued searching. Years passed and he continued searching. He decided to go back to work to get horses so he could start transporting people instead of just logs. He never left that deep, remote area of bush. It was his whole world.
One day I had a passenger who came to do nature work in that area; As time passed, they began to talk and asked about his family. He told her that her family no longer existed, lost in the fire. And she told him that she lost her husband last year.
That moment of vulnerability is beautiful. He tells her the crazy thing: he hears the voice of his wife and daughter playing in the woods, and he doesn't want to look back so they don't leave. He says, “I know it sounds crazy and I never told anyone.” And she tells him: “It's not crazy.” She also misses her husband and only people who haven't lost a loved one wouldn't understand that.
After that conversation, something changed. He decided to go to the city. For the first time in years, he saw his face in a mirror. He watched a television and asked a stranger, “What is this?” and they told him that it showed people who went to space. The world had moved on without him.
He saw a place that sold cars and those tourist planes for sightseeing. He bought the plane. Because? Because he had the money. He had been working and waiting for years, without using the money for anything. He was only using it for himself, which was almost nothing. He hunted, cooked and lived a solitary life.
He started transporting people with that tourist plane. He transported people and then quietly died at home. The same house he built for his wife and daughter, the exact model of the one that had burned down.
This is what completely crushed my heart: this man never saw his wife and daughter again. He never knew if they died in the fire. He had a dream that his wife died, but he was not sure about his daughter. He was never sure of anything.
And those images… you see the house he built, the one that was supposed to be his happy ending, and after a while, the weeds grew and covered everything. This makes me wonder when I go into nature and see those houses built and covered in weeds and trees growing inside them, what stories do they tell? these places are maintained?
It just reminds you of the circle of life, doesn't it? And it makes you ask:
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How many people couldn't meet their parents?
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How many people had unanswered questions?
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How many people did not get to see the world?
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How many people who were enslaved died in a foreign land?
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How many people who had a lot of questions that could have been answered never got the chance?
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How many people simply had memories of the places they came from?
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How many people don't even have memories?
It saddens my heart that in this day and age, there are still people who want to hurt other people, who are mean. Look at this man! Wait. Do people still have this kind of love? I just know deep in my heart that I am that kind of person who has this kind of love. I can't stay without answers.
How do you come to a conclusion in your mind when you don't know if they're alive or dead, when you don't know what's going on? It's deep.
This must have been a beautiful book that was written. It really touched my heart, just like the amber alert movie.
When you watch the movie, the graphics, the way the weeds finally swallow the house when he abandons it… it just shows you that at the end of the day, it's vanity of vanity. Those things that you appreciate so much, for which you feel so much love, that you want to pass on from generation to generation… are still vanity. Anything can happen.
It makes me realize… I can't tell you how many people never got to see their parents. And sometimes I complain, “Oh, my dress isn't right,” or “I want to eat vanilla ice cream,” or “It's too hot in the room.” There are people who didn't even have the luxury of seeing their parents, who didn't even have the luxury of seeing where they came from.
Do you even understand the depth of this movie? The certainty of life that can consume you when you don't know or have an answer.
You should think deeply and ask yourself: “What is there in this world?”
Train Dreams is a moving and well-deserved tribute to the lonely and lost.
| Role/name used in the film | Real name of the actor/actress | Crew Role | real name |
| Robert Granier (The log man) | Christian Bale | Director | andrea arnold |
| the wife | Carey Mulligan | Producer | Graham Broadbent |
| the daughter (Unnamed) | Elsie Fisher | Screenwriter | Jane Campion |
| The kind owner/friend of the store | Bill Murray | Director of photography | Roger Deakins |
| The passenger | Jodie Comer | film editor | Lee Smith |
| — | — | Composer | Max Richter |
Have you ever found yourself grappling with life's big unanswered questions, especially those related to loss or major life events? I have had this question in silence and never told it to anyone: My question is about my deceased sister and if he found peace in the afterlife (heaven). I would appreciate hearing if other people share similar, deeply personal questions they wish I could have answered.
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