Oscar Watch: Train Dreams

Simple, sweet and sad. ‘Step and Repeat’

There is a quiet bravery to Train Dreams, a film that doesn’t rush to impress or dazzle, but instead settles in—patient, observant and deeply human. Sweet and sad in equal measure, it moves at an unhurried pace, mirroring the lives it honors - ordinary people who work hard every day, love their families fiercely and rarely ask to be noticed. This is storytelling stripped to its essentials—simple, grounded and profoundly real. In its stillness, the film captures a vast and often overlooked swath of America, reminding us that endurance, devotion and dignity don’t need spectacle to resonate.

“Based on Denis Johnson’s novella, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century. The film recounts the 80 years of the life of Robert Grainier around Bonners Ferry, Idaho.^[3] Arriving in the area on the Great Northern Railway as an orphaned child, Robert drops out of school and spends his younger years without direction or purpose, until he meets Gladys Olding. They marry, build a log cabin along the Moyie River, and have a daughter, Kate.” Wikepedia

What makes Train Dreams quietly radical is its insistence that these lives still exist—unchanged, unseen, and largely ignored—in a world increasingly consumed by power, greed and relentless ambition. As attention tilts toward influence and excess, the masses living lives of simplicity are pushed further into the background, their stories deemed too small to matter. This film resists that erasure. It reminds us that beneath the noise of status and striving, there remains a quiet majority whose lives are built not on dominance or wealth, but on work, family and perseverance—and that, perhaps, is the truest measure of significance. It could not be more timely.

Every day is the same: Simple, sweet and sad: ‘Step and Repeat.’