Joel Edgerton did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Robert Grainier in Train Dreams.
I return to the very talented Joel Edgerton interestingly in another role that Robert Duvall probably would’ve knocked out of the park. As Edgerton plays Robert Grainier a man representing history, though not historical but really could be any number of men of the period, who were part of the creation of America as we know it however no one would pay 25 cents to walk in the rooms where he grew up, no children would be named after him, though someone might plagiarize the Assassination of Jesse James to describe the character. Edgerton is constructing a man of a specific time but a specific one in which in many ways must still be universal. Something he achieves frankly with such remarkable ease in terms of the conception of his performance. Edgerton is one of those actors where you’d never think he’s Australian as Robert in reality, in fact you wouldn’t even second guess him as just being this logger. A logger who began his life as a train orphan sent into the west and finding a life for himself largely isolated within himself as he goes about his work as a logger. Edgerton’s work is able to embody silence so potently where he never simply is on the screen and importantly there is the life of the character within the silences. Where Edgerton’s performance alludes to a man already living with an innate sadness as the abandoned child, not as a man overwhelmed by this emotion but one who regardless lives with it.
The importance of Edgerton’s performance in many ways is the lack of importance of it. Edgerton fashions nothing within Robert to make Robert any more or less than he is. Edgerton instead does not create any semblance of quirk or eccentricity, he is just any old man in so many ways and the way Edgerton can embody and make that compelling is what is the greatness of this performance. Because Edgerton seeks only to present life, and within that, even though technically he doing an accent, technically he is doing much in terms of the physicality of the role, particularly the way Robert is so often turned in towards himself in terms of his body language and so often looks down rather than up, speaks much about who is is as a man isolated in the world, none of it feels like a bit of effort from the performer. Edgerton makes the most essential success in this performance which is simply existing as the man. Never is there a question of performance, he is just this man, and that is the essential truth that needs to exist so we can then just follow Robert in his journey. Edgerton never gets in the way of seeing the man as he is within each moment of it and there is the fundamental great success of this performance from his starting point.
Edgerton’s performance wears a difficult life, his eyes begin with a weariness, not one that needs to grow and speaks to where the man has already come from and the work he has already done in the dangerous work he performs as a man. With an early traumatic event coming while Robert is on a bridge building crew and a group of men go about casually murdering one of the Chinese workers. Edgerton’s performance in the scene is a pivotal establishment of the observing man as in his eyes we do see the concern even in his ask of “what’s he done?”, however at the same time a man unable to break a general complacency as the murder happens in front him. Edgerton’s reaction in the moment and thereafter showing the haunting vision of the crime still being worn in Robert’s eyes as he must now live with regardless of what he does with his life. Contrasting that an early light comes in the form of his eventual wife Gladys (Felicity Jones) who makes advances towards Robert far more than Robert does towards her. What Edgerton captures with Jones isn’t this red hot sort of romance, but rather a very poignant calm connection between the two. Where Edgerton just exudes a greater comfort, speaking a few more lines than usual, and within those lines Edgerton emphasizes a degree of growth of the man reaching out a bit more by being awoken by his wife. There’s a natural sincerity in their chemistry that makes their connection and initial life together as they make a log cabin home near a river, that powerfully illustrates the importance of being taken away from isolation even more so than love.
Robert must return to his logging job every year far from Gladys where Edgerton is able to artfully yet quietly reflect the often harsh elements, not in big reactions but little ones that convey the constant threat of death. An element that Edgerton doesn’t portray as a debilitating fear but rather a subdued awareness of the nature of the space. Within this time we see him react to a few people, particularly explosive expert Arn Peeples (William H. Macy), where we get just a bit of camaraderie between them. Edgerton’s performance is notable in his reaching out to the older man with an earnest interest in what he has to say and more importantly an earnest wish to make connection with him. Edgerton, something he does consistently throughout, is putting just enough on a given moment of bringing us quietly within his mental space. Particularly in moments such as seeing a dead man’s boots placed into a tree, where within Edgerton’s performance you see in his eyes how much these losses do follow him, yet within that expression there is also just the quiet resilience of keeping that path. This is even to the point of Arn’s own death from a random fallen branch, where Robert stays with him in his final moments, which Edgerton is able to emphasize the empathy in Robert’s watching and listening but also the powerful sense of a man being unable to know what to say or how to really understand the man’s death.
The respite being consistently for Robert with his wife and eventually his daughter as well. Where Edgerton brings the beauty of the simplicity of the joys in spending time with both of them and finding the pain of separating from them. Making it so when a massive forest fire ravages his home while Robert is away it is absolutely devastating. And what we see is the true power of his performance, because as much as Edgerton quietly carries the film through so much of it, when he raises his voice it has such a tremendous weight to it. In this instance portraying the penetrating anguish as he looks for his wife and daughter within the ashes of his home. Edgerton’s eyes filled specifically with such a pain of the man being lost and alone as he wanders around the graveyard of his life. Edgerton having one of his most verbal moments as he looks upon the image of the Chinese man who haunts him, where Edgerton’s delivery which is apologetic but with the terrible sadness as he states that his wife and daughter were too much a cost for the “payment” of his past failure. Only finding any respite between frequent visits from local shopkeep Ignatius Jack (Nathaniel Arcand) and finding stray dogs. Edgerton is incredibly moving in creating the small steps away from the sorrow. A sorrow he never entirely loses but finding a man having moments of connections when he can. Finding in particular his interactions with the dogs having a poignancy of a lonely man finding some relief for his isolation.
We follow Robert then as an aging man including one more trip to a logging expedition where Edgerton is almost silent in this sequence, yet amazing work in providing the way that Robert is even more lost than before. Including a moment where he speaks to another former fellow logger talking about Arn, where the older man can’t tie his shoes nor even remember that Arn died. Edgerton’s reactions in these moments are so subdued yet heartbreaking in his reactions of empathy towards the man but while also being struck at seeing his potential future if he were to keep coming back as a logger who no longer has a place on the jobs. Leaving Robert instead as providing essentially a local taxi service via wagon where Edgerton projects in his physical manner so effectively the detachment to his customers even when he’s directly speaking to them. That is until he takes a forest service worker Claire (Kerry Condon) where he finally has a longer conversation. Initially just from her more brazen personality where she leads the conversation where Edgerton’s great in the shyness of his work that grants years of not being the focus of conversation or even having someone to converse with in such an open way. Which eventually leads to a more poignant discussion between the two on their mutual losses including Robert finally talking about having lost his family.
Edgerton is masterful in this scene bringing such a weighted sense of the life the man has lived in every word, the painful sorrow in every word as he speaks about the pain of his loss at times being too much. There is so much within it that he lets out just a bit, but the amount that we can see in his eyes is almost more than he can bear. Just the way in Edgerton’s voice just a bit, as he doesn’t even entirely lose his composure is so heartbreaking, because you do know the years have past, the nature of the man is to keep it inside, yet the emotions we see still are so raw and honest in every moment of Edgerton’s performance. Love also Edgerton’s consideration of Claire’s words about her own loss and the importance of every little thing. Edgerton’s great because it isn’t a simple comfort, just consideration and attempting to find that meaning in his eyes of man lost. Yet there is something as powerful in his minor chuckle at the idea of him being a hermit in the woods and being of some kind of importance. A meaning though that is Robert’s focus as we follow him in his remaining years. Visiting a phony freak show that promises answers with Edgerton’s quiet breakdown carrying remarkable punctuation of man struggling at the lack of one. The moment of looking at himself in the mirror Edgerton is amazing as you see the man surprised at the years represented by his own face and a man lost even within himself in a way. Contrasting that however is the film’s final scene where he takes a plane ride and while observing the size of the world below him, Edgerton’s reaction is that comfort in the way and even contentment. It is only a reaction yet speaks volumes of the native tongue of silence for Robert. Edgerton delivers an a masterclass in subtlety built upon not noise rather on hushed tones and often silence. Finding so much nuance, so much texture and so much soul in every second we spend with the type of man who wouldn’t be noted by history but is reflective of the history of so many lives.
