History YMMV / TheGirlOnTheTrain

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: A rare non-person example. When Megan tells Tom she's pregnant he shoves her away, where she trips on a log and hits the back of her head on a rock. [[TearJerker In that moment, Tom realizes that he could kill her right here and get away with it.]] And he soon does.

* WhatAnIdiot: Megan decides to take Tom to the woods where there are no witnesses to tell him about her pregnancy and the possibility he might be the father, making it very easy for Tom to kill her when he realises she's going to make life difficult for him. Granted, Megan couldn't have expected Tom to straight-up ''murder her'', but it was still a very poor decision.

* NightmareFuel: [[spoiler: the murder of Megan. ''Jesus''. After Tom hits her and briefly knocks her out, he begins dragging her to the dirt pile to bury her. Megan regains consciousness, sees where she is, and realises pretty quickly what Tom intends to do with her. She begins screaming in an absolute panic, before Tom ''[[CruelAndUnusualDeath bludgeons her with a rock]]'', repeatedly, never displaying any kind of emotion other than grim determination.]]

** Alison Janney in a film featuring a therapist and {{Gaslighting}}. The same year she also starred in ''Literature/MissPereginesHomeForPeculiarChildren'' [[spoiler: where she's a demon posing as a therapist]].

* AwardSnub: Emily Blunt was nominated for the 2016 BAFTA and SAG awards for Best Actress, and was in the running for an Oscar nomination, but was left out. The highly competitive Best Actress race that year, as well as the film's mixed reception, are probably to blame. Notably though, Blunt's performance received high praise, even from those that otherwise disliked the film.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Street numbers in the U.S. normally have odds all on one side and evens all on the opposite. So number 15 and number 13 would not be two doors down from each other, but next door to each other. Ignoring that, there's a [[FailedASpotCheck glaring error]] later on when Rachel leaves Scott and Megan's house and the mailbox says it's number 18.

** [[spoiler: Rachel killing Tom after years of abuse and conditioning. He's such a vile character that it's very satisfying to see Rachel finally get revenge. In the movie, Anna helping finish him off also counts as well as the look Rachel and Anna exchange after as the latter finally understands the former]].

** [[spoiler: Rachel killing Tom after years of abuse and conditioning. He's such a vile character that it's very satisfying to see Rachel finally get revenge]].

* JerkassWoobie: Scott seems to be an emotionally abusive {{Jerkass}} but he also seems genuinely devastated by his wife's death. What's more is that he hides out at Rachel's house one night - a woman he barely knows - because he can't handle getting hounded by the press outside his own home.

*** Also, just before that, Anna is angry at Megan for quitting her job as a nanny. Megan suggests that Anna goes back to work, saying it's actually better for the baby. Anna snaps, "How would you know?" and Megan looks visibly pained. [[spoiler: Because she accidentally killed her own baby when she fell asleep in the bathtub and let her go. Anna didn't know this of course, but still, ''ouch''.]]

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Many reviewers noted that this movie has very good subplots and performance that was held back from the directionless main plot.

* NightmareFuel: [[spoiler: the murder of Megan. ''Jesus''. After Tom hits her and briefly knocks her out, he begins dragging her to the dirt pile to bury her. Megan regains consciousness, sees where she is, and realises pretty quickly what Tom intends to do with her. She begins screaming in an absolute panic, before Tom ''[[CruelAndUnsualDeath bludgeons her with a rock]]'', repeatedly, never displaying any kind of emotion other than grim determination.]]

* NightmareFuel: [[spoiler: the murder of Megan. ''Jesus''.]]

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Anna is meant to come across as a lot more sympathetic than she actually is. Because she has NoSympathy for a woman who a) found out she was barren, b) got cheated on by her husband, c) was forced to move out of her own home to make room for the new wife and d) is now a functioning alcoholic - plus the fact that ''Anna'' is the one whom Tom cheated on Rachael with - a lot of readers can't feel sorry for her being afraid that Rachel is after her. It comes across as LaserGuidedKarma.

** Megan's life was a big TraumaCongaLine. She lost her brother and is in an emotionally destructive relationship with Scott. She clearly hates herself and [[spoiler: was left broken by the accidental death of her baby daughter, and the father of said child abandoned her after they buried her body]]. Then of course she dies just as she's turning her life around.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Street numbers in the U.S. normally have odds all on one side and evens all on the opposite. So number 15 and number 13 would not be two doors down from each other, but next door to each other. Ignoring that, there's a [[FailedASpotCheck glaring error]] later on when Rachel leave's Scott and Megan's house and the mailbox says it's number 18.

* FollowTheLeader: As nearly every reviewer pointed out, this is very much in the ''{{Gone Girl}}'' style, and also bears some similarities to ''{{Before I Go To Sleep}}''. TropesAreNotBad.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Anna is meant to come across as a lot more sympathetic than she actually is. Because she has NoSympathy for a woman who a) found out she was barren, b) got cheated on by her husband, c) was forced to move out of her own home to make room for the new wife and d) is now a functioning alcoholic - a lot of readers can't feel sorry for her being afraid that Rachel is after her. It comes across as LaserGuidedKarma.

** Megan revealing what happened to her baby - [[spoiler: they took a bath together and the girl drowned when Megan fell asleep.

** [[spoiler: There's also Anna watching the whole scene from a distance. It made sense in the book, where it's made clear that Anna is trying to pretend everything is fine so as not to scare the baby. In the film it just looks like Anna is mostly indifferent, and she only helps once Tom is definitely stabbed].

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: With the reveal that [[spoiler: Tom emotionally abused Rachel]], this puts Anna into a new light. Was she too [[spoiler: manipulated and conditioned like that]]? How much of her belief that Rachel is after her is down to her own paranoia?

* {{Narm}}: [[spoiler: Tom's death in the movie, while exactly as it was in the book, can induce some laughter. Rachel stabs him in the neck with a corkscrew and blood starts pouring down the spout in a comical way]].

* {{Tearjerker}}: Megan revealing what happened to her baby.

** Megan's life was a big TraumaCongaLine. She lost her brother and is in an emotionally destructive relationship with Scott. She clearly hates herself and [[spoiler: was left broken by the accidental death of her baby daughter]]. Then of course she dies just as she's turning her life around.