- Rated R
- Thriller
- 2008
- Buy the Blu-ray
All photos © First Look Studios
Reviewed by Jonathan Flax
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ike a quintessential Russian novel, Brad Anderson’s deliberately paced new thriller, “Transsiberian,” poses a multitude of thorny moral questions…and then steadfastly refuses to answer them. Thankfully, the film – which owes partial debts to both Dostoevsky and Roman Polanski – is so deftly constructed and so respectful of the audience’s intelligence that you are left applauding the movie’s provocative, gray-area conclusions.
The film is set primarily on the famed Trans-Siberian Express, a Russian train that scoots from Beijing to Moscow in a snappy seven days. When aw-shucks Iowan train enthusiast Roy (Woody Harrelson) convinces his increasingly bored wife Jessie (a fantastic Emily Mortimer) to embark on the long journey following a missionary stint in China, it’s a gesture meant to inject some adventure into the marriage. It works, but far too well. One shifty Spaniard (Eduardo Noriega), one corrupt Russian cop (Ben Kingsley, who -- fun fact! -- is in every single film released this year), and two breathless cover-ups later (one for drugs, one for murder), Roy and Jessie are pitched in a battle for mere survival.
Anderson allows the audience a full hour to get a read on Jessie -- a woman we slowly learn has a dark, wild past – before unfolding the major, often surprising plot points. Once the central event occurs (omitted here for spoilers’ sake), Jessie faces moral quandaries of truth and secrets, murder and self-defense, commitment and concealment. Anderson meanwhile skillfully riffs on each without tying any of them up in a Hollywood-approved tidy bow. (Though this is perhaps Anderson’s most conventional genre piece, the film remains indie to its core.)
Carrying the brunt of Transsiberian’s murky moral terrain is Mortimer, and it is not hyperbole to call her multi-faceted performance a total revelation. She was certainly magnetic in Lovely & Amazing and perfectly understated in Match Point, but in this film she skillfully drives the action. You root for her throughout, but you can never truly say if she’s bad or good (and Anderson’s not helping on that one, either). Her moments of longing or loneliness during the first hour are as searing as her second-hour bouts of nerves, fear, dread – and fast escapes. Not an easy task in the vast Russian tundra.
Just below the surface of the main action, however, is Anderson’s sub-theme: what are the personal and political advantages of modern-day Russia versus the Soviet era? Paraphrasing likely Soviet sympathizer Grinko: “before you could live in the darkness, and now you can die in the light. Which is better?” Anderson never answers.
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