IN this post-Gone Girl thriller, based on the book by Paula Hawkins, men and women are locked in an hellish fist and bottle fight of need, manipulation, betrayal and torment, writes Jason Day.

Emily Blunt commendably holds the centre stage as she sways, slurs, sweats and staggers as the drunken, unbalanced title character who may be implicated in the disappearance of her former neighbour Haley Bennett, a woman whom Blunt has never met but has constructed a fantasy perfect life for during glimpses of her during the morning commute.

When one day she witnesses Bennett's apparent infidelity, that fantasy and Blunt's pathetic life crumble.

Director Tate Taylor manges to construct an intriguing, permafrost-cold thriller around a script full of stereotypical, flat characterisation and poor plotting.

The male characters are given little background history and are entirely predatory, controlling and manipulative.

The women are needy, emotionally fragile or damaged.

Fans of the book may very well hate this film and its relocation from London to suburban New York (though it actually serves the film quite well) but it's a psychological rollercoaster ride the uninitiated will want to hang on for anyway.