In television lingo, a bottle episode is a program that takes place in one location with the core cast of characters. Notable examples could include “Fly and “4 Days Out” from “Breaking Bad,” or the self-referential “Cooperative Calligraphy.” At times, they’re plugged into a season to save money in the budget, so there is even more for more elaborate set pieces. For a writer, it’s a challenge to confine all the action within a single space that also lends itself to character study. This style isn’t exclusive to half-hour or hour-long episodes, but can be applied to feature-length movies, such as “12 Angry Men” or “My Dinner with Andre.”

Romanian Tedy Necula, who is one of a few disabled filmmakers, took this storytelling concept, expanded it and applied it to his first feature film, “Beside Me.”

The concept is simple enough. On the day of a tragic fire that ravaged the actual Colectiv nightclub, which killed 64 and injured 147 others in 2015, a subway stalls while en route to Bucharest, Romania, for at least an hour. Within the close quarters of a single car, its occupants interact, reveal their stories, struggles and unexpected connections. What comes out in the end is a message of the connectivity of humanity.

Each of the roughly dozen characters we meet are unnamed and are credited as such, but we get to know them by our own descriptors to assign to each traveler. Audiences won’t have a problem identifying who is who, because Necula gives specific traits and signifiers to these characters by illustrating what their struggles are from the moment we see them.

We observe a mother with a special needs boy, a young man with a shaved head but soft heart, a crew of cruel and irreverent teenagers, an arguing mid-life couple, a man who fears his brother is one of the fire’s victims, a successful businessman flirting with a young mother, an elderly couple who talk about the husband’s health issues, and others with their own hidden qualifiers. Their conversations are private and intimate, but we are let into them, intercutting between each story as they unfold.

We are told through cell phone screens and characters talking about the fire tragedy. Some characters fear that their loved ones are among the victims, creating a sense of dread and angst around the film. A film reader can connect what happened on the subway with the fire, which is that sometimes tragedy is the catalyst that unites people who otherwise wouldn’t have the time for one another.

Unlike other feature narratives, there isn’t a single main character for the audience to see the film through. Instead, Necula creates a collective experience, using the subway car as a crucible or a pressure cooker as the tensions breathe in and out of the small space. Within this space, people are quick to judge and condemn, not unlike what we see day-to-day.

As a foreign film, it takes quick eyes to read the dialogue between the characters, but I found the writing naturalistic and could follow what each character was going through easily enough, even with something of a culture barrier.

The film is an exercise in writing and character work, showing what can come out of a simple idea coupled with a poignant message. In a promotional video to crowdfund the film, Necula said, “People need inspiration because they don’t know how to inspire themselves. The conflict is the strangeness of being other strangers.” He went on to equate the microcosm of the subway to the entire world, as we as a people are “stuck” together just as the dozen or more were within the confined and stranded subway train.