Locke

**Spoiler Alert**

Directed by: Steven Knight, Starring: Tom Hardy

An ambitious, original film like Steven Knight's Locke asks the audience to invest time and emotions on a story told completely within the confines of a car, which could have just as easily been set in a sensory-deprivation tank for the minimal sound and visual stimuli we are presented. In said hermetically-sealed environment is Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy); a man who has just driven away from a major construction project--for which he acts as a foreman--and his wife and family. Why would a man abandon a life of security, step into his vehicle and drive away into the abyss of night, his destination known only to him?

It is only a matter of time before we learn just what Locke has in mind. A celebratory, post-project dalliance from the year before leaves him the father of a child with an emotionally fragile woman he barely knows. The very evening he leaves his job and family is also the night the woman is to give birth to his child and he is determined to be there at her side when it happens.

Along the way we hear Locke cooly inform his wife of the one night stand and the child the woman is to bear, which is of course met with astonished silence. He also informs the construction project leader that he won't be present the next day for what will be the most important day in Locke's career. The leader reminds him several hundred million dollars is at stake but Locke, as calmly as he addressed his wife of his infidelity, tells the leader he will insure the project continues as planned with a colleague as surrogate. The leader is of course apoplectic and after a volley of phone calls to the project leader, Locke is dismissed from his position. With an Olympian devotion to duty, Locke contacts colleagues to assist him in his mission though he finds the task exceedingly difficult.

He also spends his time on the phone to his wife and son; the former can't forgive Locke, in spite of his repeated pleas for understanding while the latter, ignorant of what has transpired between his mother and father, is crestfallen when his dad tells him he won't be home to watch the football game with the family. It is heartbreaking to hear his son's plaintive appeals as the dissolution of Locke's family seems all but assured.

And finally, Locke must also contend with the woman who will bear his child. Her anxious, frightened voice on the phone is as emotionally trying to Locke as it is to the audience but even to her he maintains a collected demeanor and in his stark honesty, he informs her he can't love her because he barely knows her.

What develops between the three scenarios makes for a hairy, nail-biting drama and what is particularly mind-boggling about it all is that it takes place inside a moving car; only the voices of Locke's associates and family characterize their offscreen identities. This is an ambitious role for Hardy and one his talent is more than equal to. His performance is the film and it is crucial in creating tension in what is essentially a chamber piece. He is natural and restrained, only erupting occasionally when his problems become a little too sticky. He is also granted a soliloquy of sorts when he sometimes addresses the empty, rear seat angrily, as if his father were there, which provides a psychological backstory and a motivation.

Knight also works with limitations but manages to make the passing vehicles and lights a dramatic tableau. We sometimes see Locke within the confines of the car and sometimes outside the vehicle, looking in; allowing us to regard him with and without the interceding glass medium.

And how does Locke resolve his many problems in his seemingly endless drive? All I will say is that he loses and wins, though the viewer must assess that statement's accuracy and decide in what proportions he is awarded and penalized. And is his determination to do the ethical and moral thing equal to the loss of family and job? Again, the viewer must decide and in posing the question, Knight rewards us with so much with so many self-imposed narrative limitations.