Sandy Kenyon reviews 'The Girl on the Train' starring Emily Blunt

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A best-selling novel springs onto the big screen, with Emily Blunt starring as a woman caught up in a mysterious woman's disappearance in "The Girl on the Train."

A poet once wrote "life is all...but one fleeting glance," and so it is for "The Girl on the Train" who rides Metro-North every day on her way into the city, looking out at the neighborhood where she used to live and musing about one good-looking couple, the young wife in particular.

She sees her with a man who is not her husband, and this becomes important when Megan, the young wife, goes missing. Blunt's character, Rachel, becomes a suspect.

Haley Bennett makes the most of her supporting part, bringing depth and complexity to every second of her time on screen.

The missing person worked as a nanny for Rachel's ex-husband, played by Justin Theroux, and suspicions are raised when the audience learns Rachel has been stalking him and his new wife.

All bets are off because Rachel is an alcoholic, and in a scene that takes place during an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Blunt captures perfectly the desperation of the disease.

Blackouts follow binges with frightening consequences as the police continue to investigate Megan's disappearance.

It's the best performance by an actress on the big screen so far this year, and Blunt deserves an Oscar nomination for the way she communicates the pain and pathos of "The Girl on the Train."

The movie is based on a best-selling novel that many readers worried would fall short on the big screen, but it doesn't. In fact, a second viewing might be in order to experience all of the film's many wonders.