A perfect film to watch as you hunker down on a cold, blustery winter’s night, 2008’s Transsiberian, directed by Brad Anderson (The Machinist) follows a married American couple, Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer), as they take the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing, through Siberia, and ending in Moscow.
A taut, tense traditional thriller, the couple, despite their recent charitable efforts (helping needy children in China), are having some relationship issues. With opposite pasts, Roy is an excitable, boyish man who has lived a good life, while his wife has been running from her demons, finally finding some semblance of normalcy after meeting him (they were thrown together by way of a serious car accident). At one point, Jessie ominously utters “kill off all my demons, Roy, and my angels might die, too” – a complicated warning for her do-gooder husband.
Passionate about all things train related, Roy hopes to feed his locomotive-mania while also injecting some adventure into their marriage (something that has been missing in Jessie’s life since she settled down with him – planting roots for the first time in her complex life).
Bunking with another couple, Spaniard Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and the much younger Abby (Kate Mara), the pairs chum around in the confined locale. Though all seems more that affable, something feels a bit off about the new duo. Unreadable looks permeate their casual meetings – is there a yearning, a danger, or a deception behind those mysterious glances?
During one of the stops, the men and women separate to enjoy the chilly foreign town. As Roy and Carlos meander through a graveyard of trains, things don’t feel quite right. When we return to the train, Jessie realizes that Roy is nowhere to be found. She is consoled by the odd-ball couple who suggest that they find a hotel at the next stop where they’ll wait for him to catch up (though no contact has been made with the boisterous man).
Soon, two Russian detectives, Grinko (Ben Kingsley) and Kolzak (Thomas Kretschmann), board the train. Is their appearance just happenstance, or are they there for a much more sinister reason? I will leave the rest in a blustery snowstorm of mystery, as it is best experienced firsthand.
Paying homage to the great tradition of thrilling train films, this motion picture brings to mind three Hitchcock classics: The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train, and moments from North by Northwest, as well as several other non-Hitchcock related features (Night Train to Munich, Ministry of Fear, or numerous James Bond films, to name but a few). Transsiberian captures all of the claustrophobic isolation as well as the blind trust we put in people we have never met while travelling in mysterious and magical settings.
Filmed in Lithuania (a stand in for Siberia), Anderson and his team find striking, sometimes serene, but also frosty locations that bring the story to life. There is a romantic quality to the adventure, as there is so much beauty found in the stark locales, yet there is also a frigid depression to it – bundled, sad looking people in an inhospitable, pine-tree-filled land (where nothing else seems to grow). Perhaps the most impressive moment finds Jessie (an amateur photographer) and adventurous Carlos heading out to a former church that, in its dilapidated crumbling state (found hidden in the abandoned woods), is still austerely beautiful. Like a miniature version of the buildings found in Moscow’s Red Square, the aged wood, religious murals and decaying infrastructure are a perfect example of the magnificence found within this oppressive setting.
Opening the same weekend as The Dark Knight (one of the highest grossing motion pictures of all time), Transsiberian is, sadly, a superlative example of a movie that got overlooked due to its release date – also making it a true hidden gem. Building suspense throughout by way of expert direction, striking cinematography, an intriguing story, a bevy of superlative performances and its confining train setting, this is a thriller worth seeing. So, hop aboard this intense adventure to discover the cold, dark mystery nesting inside each and every twisty turn of this chugging locomotive.