Blunt goes the whole hog with her portrayal of alcoholism, and excels at playing drunk, a state thats notoriously difficult to act. Its a testament to her skill as if one was needed after her exemplary performance in Sicario that she never descends into parody, in spite of the mental and physical extremes shes asked to inhabit.
http://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2043621/film-review-girl-train-emily-blunt-excels-thriller-despite

Despite this let down, Emily Blunts performance is worth noting. Although the script and editing made for the least thrilling film of the year, her performance should be viewed as a diligent attempt to bring the film to life. Watching Blunts performance within Rachels drunken escapades were the only moments which truly captured a sense of what Taylor was attempting to encompass within the entire film. Blunt definitely surpassed expectations, with most of my rating for this film coming from her performance.
https://qmunicatemagazine.com/2016/11/07/film-review-the-girl-on-the-train/

Emily Blunt steals the show as the titular protagonist whose world has fallen apart after her divorce. She is absolutely convincing as a grief-stricken woman committed to her aimless daily commute. Her sorrow is so bottled up (excuse the pun) deep inside. On the surface, she appears normal. But all it takes is some verbal probing, and all the hurt will gush out like a torrent. The audience can see it in her eyes and face. Its a testament to her acting talent that she has now tackled diverse genre roles romance, action and now drama. The only thing missing on her CV is madcap comedy.
https://letterboxd.com/moviebuff/film/the-girl-on-the-train-20165b4

I'm not a person of faith, but I recommend reading the full review. Very earnest and heartfelt write up.

The baby was a boy, but I'll still take this rave. Beautifully written.

GIRL ON THE TRAIN is a decent psychological thriller, but Emily Blunt's portrayal of alcoholism is Oscar-worthy.
[..]see the movie for [Blunt's] portrayal of sorrowful Rachel if nothing else. She is not a stumbling, disgusting drunk. She speaks and something is just not quite right (Is she slurring her speech?). The hollow look in her eyes is she altered? She walks and there is just the occasional readjustment of her gait. She just sporadically leans a little to one side to place her hand on a rail or wall.
There is a scene where Rachel tries to charm a small girl on the train and her mothers delight at the attention her daughter is receiving turns to concern as she perceives that her childs admirer is not quite right. But it is subtle, as in Has she been drinking? Emily portrays that so well as she does the dawning realization that much of what she has been told she did while in a drunken blur did not actually happen. Kudos to her for a tremendous acting job in a less than tremendous movie.
It is hard for me to separate the empathy I feel for Rachel that is generated by the film compared to what I already knew about her character from reading the novel. Others look at Rachel with pity. In the novel she says to herself Id never realized, not until the last year or two of my life, how shaming it is to be pitied. She is a tortured soul, lead to believe she is worthless and a failure. And Emily Blunt for me brought that all with her. I looked at her and wanted to pray for her that she would leap the hurdle and finish the race.
http://cinemafaith.com/reviews/the-girl-on-the-train/

They're so passionate about this performance!

The best thing about The Girl On The Train, though, is Emily Blunt's performance. An initially light-hearted and relatable scene turns dark when Rachel, drunk in the toilet of a bar, performs an intense and passionate monologue, staring furiously at herself in the bathroom mirror. In this scene, Blunt is transfixing, the cinema screen almost trembling with the character's violent rage. And in a scene where Rachel bares her soul to a psychiatrist, all-too-close close-ups and a sensitive script enhance Blunt's utterly believable performance, as she delivers words groaning with sadness and exhaustion.
If you watch The Girl On The Train to relive Hawkins' novel, you are likely to be disappointed. I am certain, however, that no-one could be disappointed in the decision to cast Emily Blunt, who is admirable throughout the film.
http://www.gazetteseries.co.uk/leisure/arts/14830763.Film_reviews_with_Grace_Kinsey__The_Girl_on_the_Train_starring_Emily_Blunt/

Even after all of these criticisms, the movie still functions largely due to Blunts portrayal of the titular protagonist. An actress whose career has been filled with memorable roles ranging from Queen Victoria in Jean-Marc Vallees The Young Victoria to the bakers wife in Rob Marshalls adaptation of Into the Woods, Blunt delivers a chilling, yet captivating performance, despite the thin sketch of a script. Her Rachel is an emotionally vulnerable woman who is determined to unearth the truth but constantly struggles to trust her fractured mind.
She is so immersed in the role that, at times, it feels as if the audience is watching a one-woman show.
Derailed by a razor-thin sketch of a script and a director who clearly did not know what he was doing, The Girl on the Train is not the best film adaptation but can definitely be considered another of Emily Blunts most memorable performances.
http://soco.space/h6eHWt

Thanks again. You're an angel!

Blunt is so outstanding as Rachel vulnerable and disturbed, building herself up one minute only to relapse into drink or despair the next that its a shame shes stuck in the mess around her.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/staff/michael_smith/movie-rewind-the-girl-on-the-train-is-trainwreck/article_ca192a7b-6b63-53e2-bd09-1d9b22801ea2.html
Blunt excels as Rachel, a fractured performance that leaves her vulnerable due to her alcoholism, sympathetic due to her history but drawing contempt due to her actions. Blunt is the clear standout but the rest of the cast deliver solid performances that support the script.
http://rockrivertimes.com/2016/10/26/girl-on-the-train-is-a-suitable-date-night-thriller/
[..]There is, however, a new woman in my (critics) lifeand that woman is Emily Blunt. As the alcoholic, Blunt deepens the traditional role of unreliable narrator. She has blackouts and, thus, forgets about what happens when she is all soused-up. Despite this disability, Blunt humanizes her character by imbuing it, during the first scenes, with a very deep longing and sadness for home. She looks longingly at these homes along the tracks because, as we will find out later, she does not have a home anymore. Her alcoholic ways are done with such original ease. She is not woozy or all too drunk but we can see there is something unstable about her. When Blunt looks into the camera, one is reminded of a younger, perhaps more classically beautiful Karen Black.
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/the-girl-on-the-train-a-bumpy-ride/

Blunts performance as Rachel is stunning; shes not afraid to let her emotions run wild while she plays a harsh, complex role.[..] The film starts off strong with Blunts impressive acting, but the plot sizzles when Anna and Hipwell are introduced. Taylor tries to make viewers feel for every character just as much as they sympathize with Rachel because of her divorce and drinking habits, but with the wonky script, that doesnt happen.[..] Though Blunts strong performance helps the film, the film lacks a true sense of danger.
https://theithacan.org/life-culture/review-the-girl-on-the-train-plot-teeters-off-the-tracks/

This is an incremental cut above most Richard and Judy beach read adaptations, if only for offering a genuinely unsettling lead performance by an actor who captures an authentic sense of nightmarish, world-upside-down displacement, instead of being just another Hollywood A-lister simply playing the symptoms of aggravated psychological duress. [..] Erin Cressida Wilson's screenplay is chilling diabolical in how it delights in kicking the protagonist when she's down; an aspect that Emily Blunt really taps into with a haggard, desperate portrayal of alcoholic hopelessness that's rooted in an appalled empathy for the character she's playing. As an actor I continually blow hot and cold on, this is her best part since an unforgettable debut in My Summer of Love and an otherwise programmatic thriller is worth seeing on the merits of her performance alone.
http://letterboxd.com/film/the-girl-on-the-train-2016/reviews/by/added/

Salivating.

The best thing about the film is Emily Blunt, no contest. Blunt has always been a strong actress but she's
unreal
playing an alcoholic divorcee slowly slipping into madness. She gets a double dose of pain every day as she goes past her old neighborhood and within that pain she's granted even more of it because she's seeing two different lives that she craves. One being the fantasy of Megan and Scott's idyllic life, the beautiful couple who seem to make love at all hours of the day and the other being Anna and Tom, the life that could've been hers if Tom hadn't left her. It's heartbreaking not only because she's an alcoholic or because she's been jilted for another woman but because she'b68s going absolutely mad over these things. This isn't a stable woman and the alcoholism is only the tip of the iceberg. She's completely delusional and never once can you really see where she's coming from. You may have dreamt about the ideal life or seen a couple and thought "That's what I want" but never at the level of what Rachel is going through. When she's not showing up on the doorstep of her old home, she's becoming enraged at the idea that her completely made up life for Megan and Scott could be evaporating.
Blunt's performance belongs in another film entirely. She's world class against an entire cast (of generally good to great actors) who couldn't feel further away. I promise you, you've never seen someone playing an alcoholic like this. She tears the screen down with her intensity, burning with red, flushed cheeks, bloodshot eyes and snot and tears dripping down her face. It's a performance that could've veered too far into exploitative (and in many ways the writing takes it that direction) but Blunt manages to corral everything into one of the best performances you'll see this year. It's a shame that she's not in a better movie because she'd be Oscar nominated if she were.
See this for Emily Blunt's brutally sad portrayal of an alcoholic spiraling down the drain. She's an absolute force in a film that really doesn't deserve her. It's a career best for her and should not be missed despite the weak threads around her.
http://bjstreussnig.blogspot.ae/2016/10/blunt-instruments-girl-on-train-review.html

Blunt arguably puts in one of her most impressive performances of recent years. Praise is due to Blunt for being able to sell Rachels mania and lose grip on clarity throughout the film however, it is a crying shame that the remainder of the movie rather make her performance a lonely light to behold.
http://www.onenewspage.com/n/Entertainment/759vi2nva/MOVIE-REVIEW-The-Girl-on-the-Train.htm

You're welcome, glad to hear it!

I can't even tell you how much this thread has consoled me. Thanks again, sweetheart5b4.

Blunt is the sole strength of the film
as the protagonist Rachel Watson, a recent divorcee whos since turned to alcohol and obsessing over her ex-husbands new life. In and amongst her exhaustingly melodramatic surroundings, she more than holds it together as an actress while her character Rachel completely falls apart. She gives a raw and honest portrayal, while still looking remarkably flawless throughout.
Unfortunately her impeccable performance isnt quite enough to save the show, and if anything highlights how poorly put together the rest of the film is.
http://www.nouse.co.uk/2016/10/21/review-the-girl-on-the-train/
Although these artful touches add to the production value, the film really succeeds on the back of Emily Blunts performance. Her raw depiction of Rachel as a woman who is an angry mess, but also sad, lost, and, suddenly, determined to make things less awful, gives the plot some emotional resonance. Blunt is great at playing both drunk and in withdrawal. She also is convincing in her insistence that she used to be someone less disastrous. Blunts performance is really the standout in the film, as most of the supporting cast delivers either lackluster work or is in the film so briefly they barely register above a cameo.
http://www.thewaynedalenews.com/opinion/13147-secrets-and-a-tangled-web-of-lies-at-the-movies-with-kasey.html

And yet, The Girl on the Train is largely, improbably redeemed by one thing: Emily Blunt's freewheeling, wildly entertaining performance. The British actress has proven gratifyingly willing to stretch her range in recent years, slyly chipping away at her charming persona with roles as tough-as-nails heroines in Looper, Edge of Tomorrow, and Sicario. But1c84 she's never played someone as magnetically loathsome as Rachel, an alcoholic who makes stupendously bad decisions and alienates everyone around her.
It's a seemingly impossible needle to threadBlunt has to make Rachel unlikable and sympathetic at the same timebut she pulls it off beautifully.
Even burdened with that obnoxious voiceover,
Blunt makes Rachel's pain palpable without ever softening her jagged edges. It's a bold, go-for-broke performance that singlehandedly saves the movie.
And even changes it. As clumsily workmanlike as The Girl on the Train may be as a thriller, it turns out to be a fascinating portrait of addiction and obsession. As someone who careens from one traumatic episode to the next,
Rachel is thoroughly repellent but also profoundly sad, and Blunt invisibly articulates the deep-seated dread and self-loathing of a woman who is unable to trust herself. She can't look herself in the eye, but she lets you see directly into her soul.
http://moviemanifesto.blogspot.ae/2016/10/the-girl-on-train-three-womens-lives.html

But the real star of the movie is Emily Blunt. She turns in the best performance of her career as the deeply troubled title character. Its difficult to make Blunt look so unattractive and pathetic, but the filmmakers did so with a combination of make-up and prosthetics. But its Blunts acting that brought the character to life exactly the way she was envisioned in the book. Her performance is Oscar material.
http://www.erwinrecord.net/viewpoint/movie-night-girl-train-excellent-film-cast/
The most positive takeaway from the film is Emily Blunts portrayal of Rachel. Blunt has silently dominated the film industry with an eclectic compilation of roles over the past decade. From her supporting role in the fashion flick The Devil Wears Prada to a lead in Sicario, a movie surrounding the war on drugs, Blunt had proven to be a versatile actress on the rise. Blunts performance in The Girl on the Train only further demonstrates her wealth of talent. Her portrayal of Rachel is packed full of emotion and embodies the inner struggle of her character. Her facial expressions alone would be enough to convey the intricate, mental challenges that she suffers.
As the old saying goes, the book is always better than the movie. The Girl on the Train is no exception to this. Blunts captivating and definitive portrayal of Rachel carries the movie, but dull supporting characters and questionable derivations from the book halt the movie from finding success.
https://flyernews.com/the-girl-on-the-train-review-surprise-the-book-is-better-than-the-movie/

Oh, thank you. I'm watching the film again on Saturday. I'll make sure I pay attention to it.

I have seen the movie twice. When the first time i saw that scene i wondered the exact same thing actually. So in the second time i paid attention to the woman.
Right after they screamed "beep you Anna Boyd" Rachel turned to the mirror and the woman left. I heard the sound of her heels. It's a very tiny sound, it's normal that you didn't hear it.
I think it is incredibly sad that the woman left that early. Yes, Rachel shared her pain with someone, got support for a moment but that's it. In the end, she was -like you said- all alone.

I wonder how long the woman who was there with Rachel waited before leaving. The fact that she left silently made it even more hard hitting. When the camera pans out to Rachel standing all alone there it was incredibly sad!
So many great directional and cinematography choices in that scene.