Why does Abby order a bus for one? - Transsiberian (2008) Discussion

[–] trg1 15 years ago

My guess is that she was planning to ditch Carlos. The scene is in the movie to indicate one of two possibilities:

a) She's really a good girl, and has realized that Carlos is a baddie and she needs to get away.

or

b) She's really an evil mastermind who is planning on taking the money and/or the drugs and leaving Carlos to take the fall or be killed.

So either way, she has no deep and abiding love for him. Consequently, the only explanation for her desperation to find him after he disappears, even after she's been tortured, is because she wants the money. So the truth must be (b). She's an evil genius.

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[–] rpera58 15 years ago

They (probably her) stabbed the guy at the beginning to steal the money but, Carlos took the drug too.
Later on, she is upset whe she finds out that Carlos took the drug too (the dolls) because it inceases the risk to get caught.
That is why she plans to ditch him...until she finds out that Carlos dissapeared (was killed at the church)

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[–] Screen-7 15 years ago

>>They (probably her) stabbed the guy at the beginning to steal the money but, Carlos took the drug too.

Wow, That never occurred to me.

My impression (perhaps wrong) is that she was unaware of the murder, the drugs, and everything. (well, she knew he was a "former" drug runner.)

When she finds out that Carlos is NOT reformed, she ditches him.

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[–] Altozanero 15 years ago

So why did she make 'that face', after finding out Carlos had shown the american girl the dolls?

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[–] season_myduck 14 years ago

Just my speculation, but maybe Abby's the one who told Carlos to stuff the drugs in Jessie's luggage?

MSNBC: It's like NBC, but with MS.

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[–] madato 15 years ago

"...the only explanation for her desperation to find him after he disappears is because she wants the money"

OR she didn't want to be left behind and cut up by the gangsters until someone found the body/money.

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[–] koffje 14 years ago

I agree with rpera58 on this, but something bothered me: at one point when she's being tortured, Ben Kingsley says to Jess that Abby is not a 'nice' girl because she recruited Carlos, made him fall in love with her, and something else I can't remember. If this is true, the end really bothered me. Does she deserve to be saved and to get the money? Why would Jess do that?

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[–] petitespoon 14 years ago

Remembered at one of the stops Abby and Jess were talking about the past and Jess said she was not all that pristine, she was a bad girl before she met Roy. I think Jess see some of her in Abby and wants to help her to get a new life. And also Abby said she is working on it to get her grandfather's place back by the lake. Abby wants to have a different life and she needs the money in order to do so.

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[–] khazmir 14 years ago

Good answer, but I think it is

c) She's really a good girl who is leaving Carlos but has no money to get away.

She said she had money to pay for the ticket as she was walking out, but I never actualy saw her pay for the ticket. It looked like she was going to get some money from Carlos and maybe even officially break up with him.

I think she was desparate to find him at the hotel because she was broke and stuck, and even the whole thing with even Jessie checking out without saying goodbye or even leaving a note was weird.

Jessie told her where the money was so there was no desparate search at the end. All she had to do was go get it.

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[–] PVarjak 14 years ago

None of the responses really answers your (and my) question. I don't think that was answered by the end of the movie. I guess it was just an awkward plot point that got her out of the picture for a while; and possibly as a red herring. Much like the lame plot turn that sidelined Woody Harrelson's character for a long segment.

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[–] Ribur1980 14 years ago

But I'll try too. Abby and Carlos only volunteered to get off the train with Jessie in the first place because of the guy who told the three of them that the police were searching trains looking for drugs. Then that same night at dinner in the restaurant, Abby looked visibly upset and left the table abruptly after giving Carlos a meaningful glance when Jessie let it slip that she'd seen the (heroin) doll. Her next scene is the one where she booked the trip out of town for one. Conclusion: Abby was trying to ditch reckless Carlos so that she wouldn't be arrested with him, and she knew she had to avoid trains to get out of town. Unfortunately for her, Carlos disappeared with the money in his jacket and she couldn't pay for the ride and leave before Grinko caught her.

Abby was in on the murder/theft, but it isn't quite clear whether she knew about the drugs before that night. She was either surprised that Carlos had them with him, or just surprised that Carlos was showing the doll to other people. Either way, Carlos was making it more likely they'd be caught and you get the feeling Abby was the smarter of the two. She may even have planned the whole thing and used Carlos for the dirty work instead of being the helpless waif who met the wrong guy the way Jessie seemed to think. It's kind of left open to interpretation in the movie, although Grinko told Jessie that was what was going on. Was he telling the truth? Who knows, but I don't really see a motive for lying at that point.

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[–] PVarjak 14 years ago

My impression was that they got off with Jessie and Roy because they (at least Carlos) had targeted them as perfect 'covers' for moving the heroin and/or decided that they'd physically slip the heroin to them to carry the rest of the way. But it also seemed clear that Abby was less eager to involve Jessie and Roy, once she'd gotten to know them a bit.

Still, to me, it doesn't make sense that she'd just leave (even if she half-wanted to) because Carlos had the money, and she wanted all or half of it. (It seemed clear to me that she knew about the drugs and money from the beginning.) I have to conclude that that was another red herring to make the audience wonder about it and to allow her to be captured by Grinko, etc. However, the way it was presented is that she had a specific task or goal in mind in deciding somewhat suddenly to go off by herself.

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[–] PulpFictionbuff 14 years ago

Ribur1980, you are exactly right, and you saved me the trouble of having to explain it. Well done. :-)

I agree: I can't figure out for sure if she knew about the drugs or not, but it doesn't matter in regards to the OP's question.

Therefore, the answer to the original question is that Abby made up her mind to ditch Carlos when she realized that he had revealed the drugs (whether she knew about them or not). That's why she was trying to get a ticket for one.

"I want you to be nice... until it's time to not be nice." Patrick Swayze 1952-2009

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[–] donald-rando 14 years ago

I have to agree with Ribur. We are supposed to think Carlos is an evil genius who can manipulate women, but the ending reveals who was really manipulating who.

How am I not myself?

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[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] markfilipak 14 years ago

** SPOILERS **

Just to clear up some misconceptions on some people's parts...

Abby's getting cold feet because Kolzak Yushenkov is getting so close.

Early in the film, on the platform in Irkutsk before Roy misses the train, Jessie and Abby are swapping stories about their pasts. Just after Abby tells Jessie about the cottage on a lake in Vancouver she sees a man and then hurriedly wants to reboard the train. We don't yet know that the man she sees is Kolzak and what significance he has, but she knows. That's pretty much a dead giveaway that dear Abby is not innocent at all. She didn't kill the guy on the boat in Vladivostok but she is after the money if she can get it and get away.

At the next stop, Ulyanovsk, she and Carlos and Jessie get off to wait for Roy. It is there that she gets cold feet and sees a chance to get away without, one should note, telling Carlos that she'd seen Kolzak.

See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800241/board/nest/164801093.

Interested in collaborating on a new type of film rating system? Contact me.

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[–] Mallet-2 13 years ago

And she said she had the money when she tried to book the trip, but if Carlos ran off with the money, she was stranded.

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[–] dwightloverxoxo 13 years ago

Obviously,abby wanted the money. But she realized how many risks Carlos was making, like the fact he told Jessie and she was some random church-going american tourist. Abby was smart and realized she didn't want to get caught by the Russian police, and Carlos was risky. She was planning to get the money from carlos then leave Russia before sh*t got bad and go buy her grandpa's house.

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[–] d98mp 13 years ago

***Possible Spoiler***

I think it is as simple as the script writers wanting to "prove" that Abby is indeed innocent. By making her a bit ambivalent about whether to stay with Carlos or go they are telling us that she wants a change in her life.

If she was so smart she wouldn't get caught. She wouldn't pursue a criminal career in Russia either. Yes, she did have a slight similarity with another girl in another movie who was indeed an evil mastermind, but this is not that movie.

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[–] Mrpinkeye 13 years ago

bet shes glad she never took that bus ride. i dont think she should have gotten the money...the christians should have donated it, not given it to a theif/mule

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[–] emuir-1 9 years ago

The Christians did not know about the money. Grinka and the 'detective' discussed it, but not in front of the American couple.

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[–] AfroGeek 12 years ago

She knew that Carlos was hitting on the American girl and that he was going to try to exploit them to smuggle his heroin. I think she just wanted out.

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[–] trhickey 10 years ago

I think you and the other posters missed the point. My college Russian is rusty but judging by the sign on the building she was in, I believe Abby was making arrangements to fly out. That would be consistent with the high price she was being charged and that there are not reliable roads connecting remote Siberian towns, especially in Winter.

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