We live in a vast and complicated world, and it is easy to feel lost within it. In a population of 8.3 billion people, what is the value of an individual life, and what makes a life significant? In the face of this scale, one can easily develop a sense of purposelessness – but art can be a remarkable eye-opener, and I recently found myself floored while watching director Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams and hearing a very special line of dialogue: “The world needs a hermit in the woods as much as a preacher on the pulpit.”
Without sharing any spoilers (as it comes from toward the end of the film), the line is delivered by Kerry Condon's Claire Thompson, an agent of the United States Forest Service, to Joel Edgerton's protagonist Robert Grainier, and I was struck by its beautiful philosophy: though you may at times find yourself feeling insignificant, the reality is that each and every one of us have our own part to play in our world. It’s a wonderful and optimistic idea, and I felt compelled to ask the stars of Train Dreams about it when I spoke with them at the film’s Los Angeles press day last month.
