I really liked Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling. With a bounce in my step, eyes drooping from the overconsumption of absolutely stunning visuals, and ears still ringing with the aftermath of deeply captivating music, I walked out of the theater with a lingering sense of motivation and optimism. 

It was the expected reaction that should sequentially follow the viewing of a highly professional, well-written piece of human art. 

However, I could say that my reaction towards Train Dreams was quite the opposite. This particular film left me confused, for the lack of a better term. A ball of emotions sat in my chest, and I found that I couldn’t name the intense and unfamiliar sensations that kept popping up persistently, like bubbles in a boiling pot of soup. As the credits rolled, I sat at my desk trying to discern my weird sense of frustration, hope, jubilation, and totality. For a moment, I was sure that I felt a fragment of dissatisfaction, yet it was quickly replaced with a hesitant sense of contentment. 

It was quite frankly the most contradicting moment of self reflection I’ve ever done.

It was as if someone handed me a bizarre bowl of soup. I could only discern a few key ingredients and while I enjoyed it, it didn’t match any of the recipes I knew. There was almost uncertainty there, as if I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to like it.

This confusion ended up accompanying me for the rest of the day. Eventually, I came to the realization that it wasn’t the film itself that confused me, it was what I had expected it to be. I anticipated a definitive ending, something that would tell me exactly how to feel. Modern films are built around clear arcs, catharsis, and resolutions. Films that are carefully crafted to leave you crying from heartbreak or filled with a triumphant satisfaction at its conclusion. The emotions were linear, with an undertone of finality that rarely left you questioning hypotheticals. 

Train Dreams carved out a hollow space in my chest, yet somehow filled it at the same time with the blinding light of a thousand suns. It left me feeling serene, but also with the lingering question of what could have been. There was no clean resolution or complete closure I could neatly hold onto. Ultimately, that was where the discomfort came from. I felt out of place because I was unconsciously measuring Train Dreams against the standards I somehow absorbed without ever questioning. 

At this point in time, when you and I are sitting comfortably in our homes, there are millions of people doing the exact same thing, scattered across different corners of the world. Every expression and movement you make within your day, it is likely that someone you will never meet is mirroring you, perhaps not in the same context or for the same reasons, somewhere far away. 

In each passing second, every human emotion ever recorded and described within the English dictionary is felt by thousands of individuals. Joy, grief, despair, fulfillment, emptiness. Sometimes even at the same time, within the same person. How could anyone capture the intricacies of an entire lifetime within a two-hour film? How could you compress the slow, uneven, and often repetitive rhythm of being a human, into a digestible story? And so, movies give us the highlights, the turning point, and the climaxes, all labeled and highlighted so you can recognize them instantly.

Train Dreams ended quietly and unexpectedly. There were questions that were left unanswered and character relationships that never really amounted to anything impactful. But beauty and meaning isn’t taken away from a moment just because it didn’t translate into something tangible. We expect our lives to feel meaningful in the same obvious, dramatic way. Thinking purpose should come to us like a moment of clarity. Yet, you don’t have to be extraordinary in a cinematic sense. Life has a strange way of refusing to settle into a single definition. It was meant to be layered, contradictory, and constantly shifting. Train Dreams is the most unique movie I’ve seen because it mirrors the irreducibility of a human life. It doesn’t hand you a clear conclusion or a single emotion to walk away with. The lingering feeling of dissatisfaction, the vague regret of inaction, the carefully veiled delight, and the steady beam of contentment drums beneath all the confusion. It’s everything, all at once.