The Girl on The Train was one of the most successful thrillers of 2015. Author Paula Hawkins amassed an absolute shit tonne of money from its success.
You couldn’t get on a bus or walk on a foreign beach last summer without seeing someone clutching a copy of the book, and sure enough, The Girl On The Train went on to sell 2 million copies in the first three months of its release. It’s since sold 11 million copies worldwide and so it’s no surprise that it’s being made into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Emily Blunt.
One thing that has perplexed fans of the thriller is that while the book is set in The UK, the film is clearly set in New York.
While many speculated that this was due to an American production company or the cohort of actors, the real reason is a tad shameful.
Screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson explained the change to Entertainment Weekly and said that that a UK setting “wasn’t even on the table.”
The reason comes down to drinking culture. Those who have read the book will know that Emily Blunt’s character Rachel is an alcoholic. The American setting brings an extra veil of shame to Rachel’s alcoholism.
“It’s much more of a drinking culture [in The UK],” Wilson says. “It’s not as shameful as it is here.”
“In America, [drinking at bars] is all about going into a dark hole where nobody can see you do a bad thing,” she says.
Ultimately, she felt that Rachel’s almost daily tipples on the train would not necessarily be seen as out of the ordinary.
The alternative setting sees Rachel ride New York’s Metro-North commuter rail from Westchester County to Manhattan every day, heading to Grand Central Station.
“The train itself is totally unsexy,” says Wilson. “But the river is, and the backyards, and the suburbs – Croton-on-Hudson and Dobbs Ferry, all these places you look at when you’re coming out of the grayness of the city and you think, ‘Oh my God, I could live there.’ There’s a lot of dreams there.”
