For our retreat, I created a list of things to do at the Farmer's Market and the Grove. The people who had photos of themselves doing these things were in competition for medals at the Office Olympics. I ended up winning the silver medal, only off by one photo, I think! The green team got the gold and the bronze.

One of the photos was supposed to be of ourselves with an interesting decoration at Cost Plus World Market. There were tons of dragon decorations, if any of you are interested in filling your house with that sort of thing.

In my determination to fill my final short Friday and not go back home, I went to see Transsiberian based on hearing a few positive reviews. In this story, Emily Mortimer stars as Jessie, a woman who is traveling with her husband (Woody Harrelson) on a trans-Siberian train to Moscow after they have completed a missions trip to China. On the train, they share a cabin with an odd couple - a girl and a man who at first seem friendly but whose behaviors raise a few red flags to the viewer's eye. When Jessie realizes that Roy got off the train at a stop and that he isn't on the train, she has to wait at the next stop for him. But her life pretty much derails (get it?!) from that point on.

Roy is a bit of a nerd (I think the costume decision to give Harrelson glasses was overstepping the nerdiness) and yet he's a good guy and is generally likable. One wonders how he and his more mellow wife found each other, and we soon find out that Jessie has a bad-girl past and Roy has helped her move away from that lifestyle. Unfortunately, the differences between their personalities seem to be taking a slight toll on their relationship, although it is still evident that they love each other. The presence of their cabin-mates changes the dynamics of their trip, and Roy's disappearance leaves Jessie alone to face the issues on her own.

What I did like about this movie is that it shows how certain choices can have repercussions. I like that Ben Kingsley's character, a detective they meet on the train, says that lies can move a person forward in Russia, but they can never bring you back. Jessie learns this lesson over the course of the movie, to an extreme degree. Unfortunately, it's her choices that caused a disconnect for me. The ways she tries to deal with her problems seemed a little too frantic for realism, and because of that, I kind of wanted to smack her around until she was thinking straight... but of course she never did. Even so, Emily Mortimer is a talented actress and Transsiberian basically rests on her shoulders, and she is actually able to make it seem like Jessie's actions and emotions are authentic.

I also liked the way the cramped quarters of the train were captured. Each scene on the train emphasizes the narrowness of the train, and that claustrophobic atmosphere heightens the tension of Jessie's situation, especially when we realize she can't exactly run away from her problems when she's stuck on a train that's traveling through the middle of nowhere.

What I didn't like about this movie is the extremes to which it takes the plot. From the dark and tight train, the characters and the plot emerge into a much bigger scene and scheme of action that I didn't see coming--and didn't really care for. Suspension of disbelief flew out the door at a certain point, and that's when I kind of shut myself off from the movie. I watched to see what would happen, but I think it got to be too big for its own good and lost its effectiveness as a result.

I'm left admiring parts of the film and wishing others had happened differently. And ultimately, there aren't proper closing consequences for each of the characters, and that bothered me. It's like the movie wanted to explore the idea of the effects one's moral decisions can cause, but still wanted to give a Hollywood ending. Actually, as I sit here thinking about it, I don't think a single character was given what he or she deserved. So in a sense, what was the point?