Photo Courtesy Sundance Film Festival

A stark turning point in Brad Anderson's Transsiberian jars it from playing as a mildly gripping and intelligent thriller to a groan-worthy, melodramatic narrative disaster. Skiddish but still trusting American tourist Jessie (Emily Mortimer) just the night before and supported by husbie Roy (Woody Harrelson) turned over to the Russian police (Ben Kingsley) a drug load that had been slipped into her luggage by dealers she unwittingly befriended. All now seeming well in the light of the morning, Jessie trouts off in the direction of the dining train car, and as she opens the door, she falls out and grips for her life onto the edge of the speeding train. In Alfred Hitchcock's hands the image would be iconic; in Anderson's, it's worthy of a ticket refund. Despite strong performances by Mortimer, Harrelson and Kingsley, Transsiberian simply doesn't live up to its precedents of seeming-sweet train travel gone awry. At best, Anderson starts out well, showing that his mastery in creating scenes of nuanced human tension is spot on. His failure to sketch believable action, however, is so astoundingly acute that it calls for some serious schooling in the art of suspense.

Film opens on couple Jessie and Roy, who before their return home to the States from a Christian mission trip in Peking, jump aboard what's to be a relaxing week-long journey on the Transsiberian line. Avid train lover and general optimist Roy continually points out mundane details while the much-more reserved Jessie uses her digital photography to form an intimacy with strangers. When roommates Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Kate Mara) join in with the sexually frustrated American duo, unexpected physical attractions arise between Jessie and Carlos. Intimate scenes between Mortimer and Noriega are well drawn with implicit sensuality, but the final scene in which the two actors are made to play out that tension turns toward an unmotivated violence that resounds in moral dogma. After this, what once was a intriguing thread of story, unhindered by explicit messages, falls prey to blatant and grating morality tale status.

Temporarily separated from Roy, who overspent his welcome at one train stop, and escaping the scene before Abby catches up with her, Jessie shakes with confusion about her own goodness, only managing to calm herself for the brief space of time before she discovers the drug load Carlos stashed in her luggage. Several scenes of Mortimer in panic mode play out in incredulous beats, although the actress' concentration throughout is unflagging. Kingsley, now involved in the story as yet another train roommate, works well with Mortimer and Harrelson, allowing his slow-paced tempo of inquiry and reveal to complement their ever-increasing fear and anxiety.

It's at this point Transsiberian hits that jarring scene, however, and from that narrative stumble, it never fully recovers. Story gets morally aware of itself to the point of hyper-consciousness; Kingsley's faux-Russian accent sounds out like a Dostoevsky Double nightmare; Xavi Gimenez's once-lovely cinematography streams cut to cut as negligible; love wins; bad guys lose--well, not all the bad guys lose, thank goodness. There's a feeling of unearned triumph and reductive resolution, allowing Transsiberian to earn credits as mainstream accessible, though it earns none as a piece of art.