TransSiberian (2008) is a good thriller, but be careful who you watch it with.
Partner (10 minutes into the film): I’m not seeing much in the way of scenery. Maybe it’s lucky we decided not to take the TransSiberian like these two (Roy—Woody Harrelson, and Jessie, Emily Mortimer) because we might have seen nothing but trees.
Partner: This is so slow. I mean nothing is happening except the movie is creating this vague sense of fear, just like so much nowadays! Just anxiety and dread free-floating.
Me: I think they’re creating mystery. What exactly is that other couple bunking with Roy and Jessie up to. Roy and Jessie are such good, church-going, trusting Americans, and the other couple is up to something. The characters are developing. The girl looks punky but might be ok. The Spanish guy is sleazy and suspicious at one moment and then charming and jovial at another.
Partner: Now Jessie is kissing that Spanish guy. Ok, she’s lost all my sympathy. How dumb! Whatever happens to her, she deserves. How can she be so stupid?
Me: I think her somewhat troubled “perfect” marriage and her old, wild days showed through there for a second. She’s a complex women, and not a happy camper.
Me: How dumb! She left that Spanish guy alone in her room with her suitcase there, with her passport and everything in it.
Partner: She is not very bright for a woman who used to be worldly and street smart.
Me: Yeah.
Partner: Why doesn’t she just tell the Russian police the truth about what happened!?
Me: Right from the start we’ve seen you cannot trust the police. The story about them holding a guy for a month because his name was spelled wrong on a travel document, then cutting off a couple of toes to make him pay the bribe.
Partner: Turn down the volume! That torture scene is . . . oh, no!
Although I did not enjoy watching the movie, it is well-crafted, featuring excellent acting all around and a strong sense of place which enhances the foreboding. If there is anything that keeps this from being an excellent film, it is the denouement, the very end. A strength of the movie is the depth of serious questions it raises: Can an all-American boy and a bad ole girl make a marriage work? What’s the best way to approach another culture, with open arms or with great care? And there’s the age-old question beloved by Henry James in the late 1800s about how “innocent” Americans could fit in “sophisticated” Europe. These questions understandably take a back seat to the frantic action of the climax. But in the denouement, none of these questions are developed or taken to the next level. Rather Roy and Jessie seem stunned, which is perfectly understandable but is also the easy way out for a screen writer.