Subway Stories Tales from the Underground

This is the HBO production later reprised in London as Tube Tales. Ten sketches set on the far side of the ticket barrier, that place of late-night perils and unexpected comedy, of random encounters that are strange or dangerous, and where abrasiveness and generosity contend. The most successful episodes preserve the mystery of glimpsed fragments of other people's lives: McKay's 'The Red Shoes', Ted Demme's 'Miracle in Manhattan'. Jonathan Demme offers a slight shaggy dog story, 'Subway Car from Hell,' and Ferrara an uncharacteristically mellow anecdote, 'Love on the A Train.' Unlike the London version there are no outright duds, although the balance between the distressing and the uplifting is not quite so well struck.