Off the Rails (2021)

(On Cable TV, December 2022) If I say that I did not care for Off the Rails, didn’t find it funny, didn’t find it interesting, and didn’t find it worthwhile, I’m not actually giving it as bad a review as you’d think. For I can at least recognize that the film is not for me—as a dramedy following three fifty-something women taking an extended rail trip through Europe to recapture past glories, this is clearly a film for a specific demographic group—middle-class white women prone to wine sipping and empty nest syndrome. This isn’t a group often targeted by filmmakers, so at least that should get some respect. But it’s also true that the film doesn’t have all that much going for it. The inclusion of a teenage daughter ensures that there’s a barometer against which they can compare themselves (or rather themselves against their younger selves), while the overarching plot device of a dead friend motivating their trip is there for some easy emotional beats. Blondie provides the soundtrack, which is almost everything you need to know about the result. This was Kelly Preston’s last film, lending it some undeserved gravitas. Off the Rails is not specifically bad, but it’s so innocuously average that it’s highly unlikely to develop any following outside its target demographics.   Again—that’s not as bad a bad review as could have been.