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It’s rare when a filmmaker can shift gears from project to project, varying tone from one film to the next and still being able to master the different conventions. And yet, that’s exactly the position Brad Anderson finds himself in after completing Transsiberian. While many of the Sundance faithful may have first been introduced to Anderson with his 1996 comedy The Darien Gap, I discovered the Connecticut born filmmaker after renting his underrated 2001 horror film Session 9. Sundance of 2004 saw his psychological drama The Machinist and this year’s festival delivers Transsiberian, which sees Anderson skillfully blend crime thriller with human drama. By doing so, he has created an inescapable atmosphere of tension that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until the end, proving that he belongs in the upper echelon of today’s filmmakers.

“With lies, we can go forward in life. But we can never go back.” This is the line that Detective Ilya Grinko (Ben Kingsley) delivers to Jessie (Emily Mortimer) once the shit has really hit the fan. By this point in the film, Anderson and co-writer Will Conroy have masterfully crafted the narrative to build the tension brick by brick until this simple line ties together both the quickly degrading web of deceit we’ve seen spun and the Transsiberian train on which the film takes place. It all begins when Jessie and her husband Roy (Woody Harrelson) board the Transsiberian train for Moscow after completing a mission trip arranged through their church. Anderson makes quick work of establishing a cultural divide with a motley crew of Russian passengers juxtaposing Jessie and Roy’s American conservatism and ignorance, both of which are further exploited upon the arrival of Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and his girlfriend, Abby (Kate Mara). After a pit stop in a remote Russian town, Roy is inexplicably absent when the train pulls away and Carlos’s lupine behavior tempts to reignite Jessie’s carnal pre-Roy past. Soon enough, somebody ends up dead and buried in the snow and Detective Grinko arrives on the train investigating a drug deal gone wrong that is somehow connected to one of the characters.

Be it horror, drama, or thriller, Anderson’s films always excel at cramming together psychological complex characters together into a claustrophobic space and watching them explode. Co-star Eduardo Noriega stated that what drew him to the script was the idea of multi-layered people, “characters who have characters,” and the depth and dimensions of the characters on screen is one of many reasons to love this film. Mortimer and Noriega give terrific performances and Sir Ben Kingsley’s cold demeanor serves as a subtle political message of Russia’s crumbling humanity. With such wonderfully flushed out characters, it’s a guarantee that the drama that unfolds between them will suffice to keep you on the edge of your seat. With such an atmosphere, there is always the fear of a letdown or predictable twist, yet Anderson, as he’s shown in past films, continues to take us into new directions with his writing, safeguarding himself from boring and stale storytelling. Xavi Giménez’s beautiful vérité cinematography and visual motifs further construct the saturating environment.

With the exception of a few directing spots on The Wire, Anderson has yet to be embraced by the mainstream and that’s really a shame, because he’s proven to be a consistently solid director that crafts tension like so few can do well these days. Perhaps he’ll always be relegated to the indie circuit, but as long as he keeps producing films of the quality he has, the folks at Sundance probably won’t mind at all.