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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
*** 1/2 out of five
To call Transsiberian a pleasant surprise would not be entirely accurate: a claustrophobic, unsettling thriller, it’s not much of a feel-good sort of film. But is it a good film? Very much so.
Married couple Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer) are on their way back from a church-sponsored mission trip in Beijing. He’s a train nut; she’s a reformed wild child, and their relationship is hanging by a thread. Rather than flying, they decide to take the Transsiberian Express back to Moscow – at a week, the longest train journey in the world – which begins in disaster and steadily gets worse. In the post-Soviet era, the once-grand railway has become a haven of drunks and drug smugglers, peopled with vitriolic stewards, non-functioning facilities, and cramped quarters. Beyond their windows, the countryside is expansive, desolate, and bone-chillingly cold; inside the train, however, they can’t even walk two abreast.
Roy and Jessie find themselves sharing their tiny compartment with slimy Spaniard Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and quiet, heavily made-up Abby (Kate Mara). The sexual tension between Carlos and Jessie is palpable; so is an underlying sense of creepiness. No one’s what they appear to be on the surface.
To say anything more of Transsiberian’s plot would rob it of some of its appeal: this a movie best enjoyed with hardly any knowledge of its workings. But rest assured that no matter how much you know of the film’s machinations, it’s still likely to shock – this is not an easy film to predict.
Rather than jump straight into the action, director Brad Anderson uses a more leisurely approach to the film. Nearly an hour is spent establishing the bleak setting (beautifully photographed by Xavi Giménez, using Lithuania as a stand-in for Siberia) and characters, a decision that heightens tension to near-unbearable levels, simply because the audience is constantly on edge, waiting for something to happen. When the action finally kicks into high gear, it’s gratifying in many ways; but not as gratifying as the setup. A thriller is the last place we go for well-developed characterization.
It’s Mortimer’s Jessie who gets the lion’s share of the characterization, and to be fair, most of the film rests on her shoulders. (By contrast, Roy, Carlos, and Abby, who do have their fair share of gray areas, are never quite as fully developed, and at their occasional worst, feel more like springboards for Jessie’s character arc than people in their own rights.) Mortimer herself is a revelation – hers is an Oscar-worthy performance, though of the kind that will fly under the radar come awards time. She’s a bundle of contradictions, of alternately sympathetic and despicable traits. Long after the film had concluded, I kept asking myself whether she had been a character worth rooting for all along, but I could never decide on an answer to any satisfaction. And that’s a hallmark of a well-done character.
What’s most surprising is that Transsiberian is an American film. It’s handled with more grace and subtlety than many of its compatriots in the genre (though while it mostly eschews gratuitous violence, a brutal, Saw-like scene occurs near the end of the film), and feels almost European in its handling. Perhaps this might signal an upswing in the trends of the American thriller.
One can only hope.
Transsiberian runs 111 minutes and is rated R for some violence, including torture and language. Viewed at Regal Westhampton Theatre.
ereel@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421
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