Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.

There are any number of directors these days who feel this need to make themselves the star of each and every one of their films. When you sit through a movie by, say, Wes Anderson, the person you end up thinking about the most is Wes Anderson because all of his films take place in this hermetically sealed world that I suspect only exists between his ears. I like Wes’s films, but I can see how they would strike many viewers as too precious, too particular, hard to swallow. That’s the risk you run when you push yourself into those sort of extreme areas of stylization. Sophia Coppola’s a director who I am keenly aware of as an almost palpable presence in her films. Of course, Quentin Tarantino is always the implied lead character in every Quentin Tarantino movie, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s what makes them what they are. His personality, so distinct, so movie drunk.

With Brad Anderson, the opposite is true. He’s very talented, very smart, a director who I think has been almost criminally underutilized so far. And one of the things that I find most interesting about his style is the way he vanishes into his films. They are all very stylish and smartly composed, and he seems to be very good with actors, but when you look at NEXT STOP WONDERLAND or SESSION 9 or THE MACHINIST or HAPPY ACCIDENTS, those do not look like films all made by the same guy. With his new film, TRANSSIBERIAN, he’s switched things up, moved into a new genre, and the result is a sober adult thriller that never resorts to cheap scares to deliver truly disquieting moments and ideas. I think you can call “Hitchcock movies” a genre, thanks to his very particular sensibilities and what that implies, and TRANSSIBERIAN is a Hitchcock movie. I suspect that one of the reasons Anderson shifts from genre to genre is because it gives him a chance to play riffs on things that moved or inspired him as a filmmaker. There’s a reason De Palma kept taking a run at Hitchcock over the years, a reason people try to remake his movies or make variations on ideas from them or sequels even, a reason we all still study the way he built suspense sequences or the sorts of great flawed character leads he would put together for his movie stars. Hitchcock loved to lay bare the blackest desires and motives of people in his work, letting stress and fear expose them.

That’s certainly the main idea in TRANSSIBERIAN. Emily Mortimer and Woody Harrelson play Jessie and Roy, an American couple who decide to travel from China to Moscow via the Trans-Siberian railroad. It’s an adventure, something that train nut Roy has wanted to do since childhood. As a couple, they’re an odd match. He’s sort of the classic Ugly American, and she seems sophisticated but muzzled. When they meet another young couple on the train, Abby (Kate Mara) and Carlos (Eduardo Noriega), they are pleased, happy to have the company. And for a while, the charge between the four of them is fun. But some of these seemingly carefree travelers have secrets, and some of them form new secrets during the trip, and lies and bad choices start to stack up and timing turns into opportunity turns into tragedy and worse. And the entire time, Anderson just keeps carefully turning the screws on the audience and, in particular, on Jessie, Emily Mortimer’s character. She’s the lead here, and the film tracks her reactions to her trip with Roy as well as the new couple who they cross paths with. Jessie used to be a hellcat, a wild child who looked to Roy as a calming influence. He’s square as can be, and that’s exactly why she loves him. Carlos and Abby represent this life she left behind, and all their little mysteries and the sexual tension between them and the flirtatious games... for Jessie, it’s like a siren song, reminding her of who she was and forcing her to question the choices she’s made. When things do go wrong for her, she lies reflexively. And each lie she tells is like a step into quicksand, dragging her down. Watching Mortimer crumble slowly over the course of the film, I’m struck by what a strong, subtle actress she is. Ever since LOVELY & AMAZING, I’ve been impressed with her, but she manages to dig nuance out of everything she plays, elevating the films she’s in. The free-fall panic Jessie feels as her lies pile up is very effective, and she swings from victim to weapon and back in an absolutely emotionally authentic way. This is Patricia Highsmith country as much as it is Hitchcock, and it’s no coincidence they worked together. I think their work could take a dim view of man’s nature sometimes, and TRANSSIBERIAN certainly grapples with the reflex of lying for self-preservation in a way that is both accurate and almost impossible to take in a few scenes. It’s so tense, so awful, watching her squirm on the hook.

Harrelson also does solid work in the film. I like Woody. I think he’s a big giant weirdo, and I like that about him. When he plays buttoned-down nerds like Roy, guys who wear their square with a sense of pride, I buy it just as much as I do when he plays a hipster pothead doofus. Woody’s natural charm and childlike sense of play is what makes Roy feel real, and it explains what Jessie would be doing with someone so different from her. Mara and Noriega have slightly more thankless roles, but they both make the most of their scenes. I first noticed Mara in the Mark Wahlberg vehicle SHOOTER, a miserable movie, but one where she managed to make an impression. She’s lovely, but more than that… there’s a bruised strength to her that makes her interesting. She’s young, but you get the feeling she’s got real life experience, and Anderson makes the most of that quality here. He doesn’t tell you much about Abby’s backstory, but it’s enough for Mara to become affecting, even heartbreaking. Noriega plays the greasy threatening possibly sexually predatory Carlos as well as anyone could, but of the four main characters, he’s the least developed, a device more than anything.

Finally, there’s Ben Kingsley. He shows up in one scene at the beginning, and then it’s a long while till he shows back up. I won’t explain his role, because it’s too much fun watching the way Anderson paces the reveals in the film. I’ll just say that Kingsley’s been on a roll lately, doing really fun supporting work as well as playing some cool offbeat leads. He’s been having more visible fun than he has in a long time, and the result is work that feels more alive. I love what he does here, even if it is a small role. He knows how to play this to have fun, and that’s important. Yes, the film plays real, and yes, it’s rough stuff for these characters, but a thriller has to be fun on some level... that’s what keeps it from being a tragedy. Kingsley quietly gnaws on the scenery when he shows up, and the film’s better for it.

In general, the film looks and sounds great, which is no surprise. Anderson’s got good taste in collaborators, working here with Xavi Gimenez again, whose work on THE MACHINIST was so disturbing. It’s a totally different palette for them as artists, all snow and closed spaces, and the stark Russian landscape, and they really use it. And this is the first major credit for Anderson’s co-writer, Will Conroy, and it’s a strong entry on any resume.

I know everything’s all about THE DARK KNIGHT this weekend, but TRANSSIBERIAN is too good to get lost in the summer movie shuffle. If you live in one of the limited markets where it’s open now, check it out, and if not, keep your eyes peeled in case it platforms later.

I’m really excited to see if Anderson ends up adapting J.G. Ballard’s CONCRETE ISLAND, as rumored, reuniting him with Christian Bale. Whatever he does next, though, I’ll be there to see it, because even if he doesn’t drown his films in recognizable individual style, Brad Anderson has more than distinguished himself as a storyteller whose stories are worth the telling.

Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles