“Train Dreams” is a lovely, thoughtful ode to a different time in this country, as well as to a worker of that bygone era.

Debuting on Netflix this week after a limited theatrical release, the quiet and intimate but also somewhat uneven film is the latest collaboration by the “Sing Sing” tandem of Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar. With the former seated in the director’s chair this time, they co-wrote the film, adapting Denis Johnson’s acclaimed novella of the same name.

“There were once passageways to the old world — strange trails, hidden paths,” says an unseen narrator (actor Will Patton), in the opening moments of the film, as the camera crawls slowly along railroad tracks before settling into a forest. “You’d turn a corner and suddenly find yourself face to face with the great mystery, the foundation of all things.

“And even though that old world is gone now,” he continues, “even though it’s been rolled up like a scroll and put somewhere, you can still feel the echo of it.”

This is the tone-establishing setup for the occasionally meditative tale of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker, whom we meet as a child more than a century ago. As a boy, Robert witnessed the deportation of 100 or so Chinese families from the town in which he lived, the cruelness baffling him.

Mostly, though, we spend time with him as an adult, the character played throughout the decades-long narrative by Joel Edgerton.

Robert changes for the first time in a meaningful way when a woman named Gladys (Felicity Jones) introduces herself to him. Within only a few months, they are inseparable.

As they lie in the grass by a river one day, she asks what he is thinking.

“Well,” he says, pausing to breathe deeply, “I was thinking we outta get married.”

She laughs.

“What?” he asks.

“We ARE married,” Gladys says. “All we need now is the ceremony to prove it.”

Robert supports his new family, which soon includes a little girl, by working away from their home in the Pacific Northwest during logging season, a situation that becomes harder on the Grainiers as the years pass.

Working with largely different crews each season, Robert finds temporary makeshift families where he can. He does encounter one man a second time; the older Arn (William H. Macy), a demolitions expert, offers wisdom that Robert absorbs, thoughts about the mystical cost of cutting down centuries-old trees.

Relatedly, Robert fears something terrible waits around the corner for him, illustrated by fleeting images as he sleeps — yes, sometimes aboard a train.

Sure enough, Robert’s life takes a turn that changes him, as well as “Train Dreams,” moving forward.

Edgerton (“The Gift,” “Thirteen Lives”) is excellent in an understated performance, the actor conveying a great deal to the viewer without all that much in the way of spoken words. The hope, the worry, the sadness, the pain Robert feels at various points in the story — it’s all there on Edgerton’s face.

His work stands in contrast to the screenplay, which too often engages in more telling than showing. That narration, as well-penned as it is — we’re guessing, but can’t say for sure, that it’s pulled from Johnson’s novella — and delicately delivered by Patton (“Remember the Titans”), feels like a crutch, especially in the final moments of “Train Dreams.”

And while it was done in part in the name of intimacy, we question the choice to present the film in the relatively narrow 3:2 aspect ratio. Given the lush scenery — “Train Dreams” was filmed largely around Spokane, Washington, with one week spent near Seattle, according to its production notes — a wider format may have served the film well.

Lastly, while we’re picking nits with “Train Dreams,” it could have leaned more on supporting players Macy (“Fargo,” “Shameless”), Jones (“The Theory of Everything,” “On the Basis of Sex”) and, especially, Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin,” “F1: The Movie”). The latter, who enters the proceedings in the third act as a woman who served as a nurse during World War I and who now works for the newly created United States Forest Service, is decidedly underused.

All that said, “Train Dreams” pulls you in and allows you to become invested in Robert and in his ever-changing world, a world he knows all too well is passing him by.

Even as this latest collaboration between Bentley and Kwedar leaves you wanting a bit more from it, “Train Dreams” — like “Sing Sing,” which saw Kwedar direct and followed 2021’s similarly well-received “Jockey,” which had Bentley at the helm — furthers your interest in seeing more from the talented filmmaking partners.

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‘TRAIN DREAMS’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for some violence and sexuality)

Running time: 1:42

How to watch: On Netflix Nov. 21

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