As a lover of sumptuous, visually creative, rich, poetic cinema, I've never been lover of single character films. Locking Ryan Reynolds in a box and giving him a mobile phone and a box of matches isn't likely to get me into the cinema (and it didn't). Chuck Colin Farrell in a phone booth and I'm probably going to fall asleep before the final reel. Even James Franco had to be stuck under that rock for over a year before I sat down to see his Oscar-nominated work, and only then because I was on a plane.
For Tom Hardy, though, I was lining up before his attempt had even secured a general release here. I'm glad I did.
Locke is a tour de force for both Hardy and its writer/director Steven Knight. It's a tour de force and it's a masterclass. Step into their world and you are very conscious of what both men are doing. Locke is exceptionally well written, to the point that, groaning under concrete-heavy symbolism, it is very noticeable that it is well written. It is exceptionally well acted, but acted so deliberately that Hardy's creative decisions, including his precise Welsh accent, call attention to their stark effectiveness.
Yet Locke succeeds as well as it does because of this deliberate, calculated construction. Ivan Locke, the character at its centre, is deliberate, he is calculated, he is planned. The cracks in the film are his cracks. The film holds together in execution but there is always the possibility that Knight or Hardy is going to push it too far. They come close, first with the over-bearing symbolism, then with the heavy intimation of Locke's passenger, but the conceit never crumbles. Each component, no matter how heavy handed, is used in complete service of character and each and every one makes perfect thematic sense. There is nothing frivolous here. The film is solid. The film will hold together. And by the end they will have you willing it to.
All this must sound frustratingly obtuse. I don't want to spoil your experience with Locke. It may not be a thriller per se but its effectiveness relies on knowing what you know and dictating when you should know it. Suffice to say that Locke must be seen. Hardy's performance of Knight's screenplay is one of the most moving explorations of masculinity to reach the screen in a long time. He is a good man making right in the only way he knows how and he cannot help but hurt people in the process. Knight talks to the futility of men's need to control, their inability to conquer their own selves, and ultimately their levelling fragility. With this in mind, watching Locke struggling to keep his world together is not only throttlingly tense but also strangely poetic.
Locke is not Buried or Phone Booth or 127 Hours. Its limitations are tighter and its intentions much grander. Hardy and Knight construct something memorable with some very basic tools. Word. Voice. Music. Movement. An immense morality play crammed into a single 80 minute climax. Not to be missed.
★★★★☆
Trailer:
Locke screened at Sydney Film Festival 2014.
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