The Girl on the Train (2009) review

A mixed-up girl (Émilie Dequenne) - who lives with an all-too understanding Mom (Catherine Deneuve) - first dates an aggressive, self-confident boy who's involved with the sale of drugs and then, in a moment of lunacy, decides to cut her own body with a knife and tell everyone she was mugged by some anti-Semitic thugs. The early relationship with the young man is there to establish Dequenne's character as a bit of a fibber, but when it gets to the 'bigger issue' (much too late, I think) of anti-Semitism (and hate crimes) it comes across as lazy and malnourished. That people make up stories for attention, respect, love or even more complex reasons is not surprising, and when cipher Dequenne says she doesn't know why she made up the (obviously bogus) tale (or cut herself), we can't be expected to come up with any better rationale (and if it's an 'existential act,' a la Camus, Téchiné probably needed to make a different kind of movie).