Watched Locke on Kanopy. It takes an immense ego to say “Let’s make a movie in which the protagonist never leaves his car and only interacts with other characters over the phone”—and an equally enormous talent to actually pull it off. Fortunately, like all great storytellers, director Steven Knight recognizes that limitations are merely opportunities in disguise. Far from being static or stylistically restrictive, the single location serves a vital narrative function, trapping our flawed hero as he grapples with the consequences of an earth-shattering mistake; meanwhile, the frenetic editing, percussive soundtrack, and kaleidoscopic blur of lights outside the window represent the chaos of his life, marriage, and career unraveling all around him. It’s one hell of a suspenseful drive, in which it constantly feels as though the road is crumbling behind us, leaving us hurtling towards certain doom. Of course, such a tightly-focused one man show requires the services of a top-notch performer; luckily, with Tom Hardy behind the wheel, the claustrophobic, hypnotic, hallucinatory ride stays firmly on track.
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