In terms of a single actor narrative, this concept isn’t necessarily a fresh one, with Buried, Moon, and 127 Hours all burnt into recent cinematic consciousness, but none have executed the story with such unforced ingenuity as Steven Knight’s really rather incredible Locke.
Shot in sequential order over eight consecutive days, using actors situated in a Canary Wharf hotel phoning in their performances to Tom Hardy’s increasingly exasperated Ivan Locke, this is the story of a renowned construction manager whose life is slowly beginning to unravel through a series of in-car phone calls. To reveal anything more than that would be to spoil your enjoyment of a very special passenger seat journey.
It goes without saying that for a film such as Locke to work, you have to have an actor capable of holding the audience’s gaze for the duration, and although Hardy has been larger than life in both The Dark Knight Rises and Bronson, he has been more charismatic caricature than dramatic performer. Prepare for Locke to change your perception of him. Employing a convincing Welsh brogue, it is the most naturalistic, non-actorly turn in recent memory, which is so important in convincing the audience to stay with him during what are essentially very mundane dramatic beats.
Labelling the plot developments as such is only by comparison to what you’d expect from a film such as this. The phone calls he’s receiving are not terrorists threatening to harm his family, thus forcing him into a race against time around the British transport system, quite the contrary. This is a very human story, featuring a normal guy juggling familial and vocational issues but making them as edge of your seat as any Hollywood thriller.
Much of this is down to an airtight script, one which manages to establish a series of believable relationships when 50 per cent of the acting is voicework. There’s Ivan’s exasperated exchanges with one of his building site lackeys, who may or may not be drinking too much cider, which elicits as many forehead slaps as it does laughs, and then there’s the core emotional calls to both Olivia Colman and Ruth Wilson’s characters, intriguing for differing reasons.
But it is a phonecall to one of his sons which really strikes an empathic chord, the standout scene for the superb Hardy in a film littered with them. All work because you’re forced to attentively listen for details, a by-product of the clever screenplay not spoon feeding you a backstory and the wonderful work from the off-screen performers. Know as little as possible about the film before going to see it and you’ll benefit exponentially in terms of enjoyment.
Knight’s film also looks fantastic – think Michael Mann on the M6, with the repetitive, hypnotic motorway lighting system adding visual momentum to work in tandem with the story.
This is a minimalistic masterpiece, one with layers of depth, both technically and dramatically faultless, all executed with an air of realism that never threatens to tie events up in a neat bow for the sake of audience catharsis. Couple this with a bravura turn behind the wheel from Tom Hardy and Locke is arguably the best film of 2014 so far.
5 stars
Dir. Steven Knight, UK/USA, 85mins, 2014
Cast: Tom Hardy, Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott
