Above: Tom Hardy, the only actor who appears onscreen in Mr. Knight's film
Ever since I saw him slyly smiling
through Christopher Nolan’s “Inception,” I have adored Tom Hardy. There’s something about him—a glimmer of
confident mischief in his eyes that’s irresistible. And even wearing Bane’s fearsome mask in Mr.
Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises,” he still exuded a gleam of cheekiness, a
homicidal wit that twinkled even in the midst of brutal battles.
But what about “Locke”?
Watching Mr. Hardy in the early scenes of that indie thriller, I felt a
little less affectionate. His character,
Ivan, a married man who is driving to London for the birth of his illegitimate
child, initially seems cool and calculating.
Despite the circumstances, he’s determined to do everything perfectly. He must attend the birth because it is the right thing to do, even if his work and
family suffer. And as long as his
actions are just, others will understand.
A
presumption that seems both irritating and cruel. Gradually though, Ivan becomes as
multifaceted as Mr. Hardy. Despite his
wife’s protestations over the phone, you begin to be convinced by Ivan’s
argument that he is a good man who has made a rare mistake—one that he doesn’t
intend to repeat. And it is essential
that we believe that because for the whole movie, we are stuck with Ivan,
watching him make reputation-rescuing phone calls while he drives, attempting
to keep his life from tipping out from under the banner of respectability.
For
that reason (and many others), you have to admire the audacity of the movie’s
writer-director, Steven Knight. It takes
gumption to cast only one actor and a couple of voices in a film; it takes even
more to stage the entire piece in a car during an hour-plus drive. But somehow, Mr. Knight and his creative comrades
(including cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos and editor Justine Wright) make Ivan’s
tiny BMW feel grander than it looks. The
camera doesn’t just see Ivan and his vehicle—it sees the gleaming reflections
of street lights in the windows, like luminescent blobs floating in the
night. And sometimes, these gorgeous
visions even mix with Mr. Hardy’s face, making it seem as if he were drifting
out the driver’s seat and into the night air.
In
other words, “Locke” reaches far beyond the confines of its claustrophobic
premise. Trying to assure his mistress that
he will make it to the hospital on time, Ivan keeps saying, “The traffic is
okay,” over and over, like a mantra. Yet
we soon realize that nothing is okay.
Ivan is so honest that you have to wonder—is he a truly noble man? Or is his goodness a way of placating his own
insecurity, of feeing his ego?
Really,
we can never know. “Locke” never leaves
that car and we only know Ivan’s friends and family as frantic, frustrated voices
on the other end of the line. But the
movie suggests that Ivan’s honesty and professionalism are perfect to a fault. He can fix some things; others, perhaps
not. In the end, the only thing he has
left is a steering wheel and his desperation to make everything right again.
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