Train Dreams introduces us to the story of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) by considering his life's footprint on a map. Orphaned early on, he grows up by the Moyie River in Idaho, before finding work in the 1920s as a logger, traveling west to the old growth forests of Washington. He never sees the ocean but comes within 90 miles or so of the coast. He doesn't make it very far eastward, either.

His life was small. Our narrator—the wizened tone of Will Patton—says as much in the movie's opening moments. Robert didn’t cover much ground; he was geographically insignificant and arguably unremarkable. The only thing exceptional about Robert is his quiet. Director Clint Bentley may have given Train Dreams a narrator because Robert is a soul who needs one. Someone’s got to sound out his lonelin

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