Light On Dark Water

Locke

At least two people recommended this movie in a discussion here a month or two back, and I watched it over this past weekend. It is excellent, and I add my recommendation to Janet and Rob's.

Among other things, it's a tour de force of acting. Unless there was a glimpse of someone in the opening scene that I've forgotten, only one person is ever visible. He is Ivan Locke, a construction engineer (if that's the right term) whose special expertise is managing the pouring of very large quantities of concrete. We see him in that opening scene leaving a job site and getting into his car, and the entire 90 minutes of the movie from that point on consist of him driving and talking to people on his mobile phone. We never see anything (after the opening scene) except his face, the interior of the car, highways, lights–the drive takes place at night–and traffic.

Locke is on a 90-minute drive, so the movie unfolds more or less in real time, ending when he's almost at his destination. By hearing his conversations with various people including his wife, his two sons, a woman who is about to give birth to a baby which was the result of a single lapse (or so he says) on his part, and several people associated with his job, we learn that he has put a very successful and well-ordered life at risk of falling apart completely. In soliloquies directed at his deceased father, we learn some of the reasons why he's doing it, and why he's determined to make things right for the newborn child. But one of life's most painful lessons is that you can make mistakes that are impossible to put right. 

At the end you feel like there's nothing of major importance about Locke that you don't know. Moreover, you know the other characters quite well, though you only hear their voices. The film is a brilliant job of writing as well as acting. It's been on my mind a good deal since Saturday night when I saw it, and one line in particular sticks with me: "The difference between never and once is the difference between right and wrong."

Here's the trailer. It strikes me as slightly misleading, as if it's trying to suggest that this is going to turn into some sort of action thing. But it's acceptable as a taste of what the movie looks like.

 

 

Maclin Horton

43 responses to “Locke”

  1. Rob G

    Glad you liked it, Mac. It was one of my favorite movies of last year. The film is really all about choices, and dealing with the consequences of them. The scene at the beginning (which I missed the significance of the first time I watched it) where he is at the traffic light with his turn signal on, and he abrubtly switches it and turns the other way when the vehicle behind him beeps its horn, is symbolic of that idea, and sets the entire stage for what follows.
    I agree with you fully about both Hardy’s performance and the writing. Both brilliant. If you watch the extras on the disc, you find out that the whole thing was filmed like a play, with the actors on the phones doing their parts in real time as well. They were all in a hotel room taking turns talking to Hardy on his hands-free while he was being filmed. Apparently they filmed the entire 90 minutes six or seven nights in a row, then used the best bits for the film.
    It’s a shame that Hardy didn’t get either a BAFTA or an Oscar nomination, but it’s probably too small of a film — not enough people saw it, I imagine. I do think he’s one of our best younger actors, however, and Locke has certainly made some people sit up and take notice.

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  2. Janet

    “The difference between never and once is the difference between right and wrong.”
    To me that is the essence of the movie. He made this one stupid decision, and from then on, there were no good choices. Of course, in reality the Lord can somehow use all that mess for good, but I love the way it makes this strong statement about the power of evil to multiply and divide. It’s so different from the attitude of the world in general which might say, “He made one mistake in 15 years. What’s the big deal?”
    AMDG

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  3. Janet

    Rob, I’m glad you mentioned that about the traffic light. I would never have noticed that.
    AMDG

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  4. Rob G

    “He made this one stupid decision, and from then on, there were no good choices.”
    Yes, that, and also the fact that he’s noble enough to admit it, and to try to do what’s right in the situation, even though it may cost him and others won’t understand. I liked the fact that the film didn’t make him out to be some overscrupulous neurotic, just a basically good man caught in a bad situation of his own making.
    “I’m glad you mentioned that about the traffic light. I would never have noticed that.”
    Yeah, I didn’t either till I watched the movie the second time.

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  5. Janet

    Yes, that, and also the fact that he’s noble enough to admit it, and to try to do what’s right in the situation, even though it may cost him and others won’t understand.
    But what he’s doing isn’t right either. Nothing is right. Of course, he’s made more than one bad decision. He could have had this discussion with his wife earlier and spared his family a lot of trauma.
    AMDG

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  6. Rob G

    (Spoiler alert! Skip this if you’ve not seen the film.)
    Yes, it’s not right in the big picture, but given that he’s got only two options, he chooses what he believes to be the noble one, choosing to be there while this lonely woman has his child.

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  7. Janet

    Well, I pretty much thought the original post was the big spoiler, so I haven’t been worrying about it too much. 😉
    Right, I’m not disagreeing with that.
    AMDG

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  8. Grumpy

    It’s going into my amazon cart.
    Rob, I think it is you I must thank for recommending The Killing? It is a terrifying thriller!

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  9. Rob G

    Grumpy, you mean the Danish one? Forbrydelsen? Fantastic, isn’t it?

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  10. Rob G

    “I pretty much thought the original post was the big spoiler, so I haven’t been worrying about it too much.”
    Yeah, good point! Mac, maybe a spoiler alert would be apropos on the main post?

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  11. Louise

    That sounds like a truly awesome movie.
    It reminds me of a car bumper sticker I saw recently (no, really!) which said:
    “Don’t wreck your life.”

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  12. Louise

    “Yes, that, and also the fact that he’s noble enough to admit it, and to try to do what’s right in the situation, even though it may cost him and others won’t understand.”
    Most people today simply try to justify themselves instead.

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  13. Mac

    I didn’t notice the thing with the turn signal, either. That’s a big deal.
    I didn’t watch the extras, and now I’m sort of sorry I didn’t. Usually I find that sort of thing disappointing. Interesting that all the others were in a room. And although Hardy obviously is the main show, the others all deserve a huge amount of credit for their very convincing voice-only portrayals. Just as happy that I didn’t know that Ruth Wilson was playing the wife (had forgotten, actually–I think Janet may have mentioned it in the other discussion).
    Not sure what y’all mean about a spoiler in the post. I thought the basic situation was pretty well established very early in the movie.

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  14. Janet

    It is really.
    AMDG

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  15. Janet

    You really more or less know the whole story pretty early on, and you can’t talk about the movie at all without giving most of it away. It’s not really important, I think. It’s more the–I want to say action, although that seems ridiculous–but watching the interaction between the characters that’s important.
    AMDG

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  16. Janet

    The conversation with his kids . . .
    AMDG

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  17. Rob G

    I think I’m probably hyper-aware of the danger of spoilers, because I’ve had several movies, TV shows, etc., ruined for me by people who let the respective cats out of the bags. I generally like going into something knowing as little of the narrative as I can get away with.

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  18. Janet

    Well, he pretty much has the cat crawling around his neck 10 or 15 mins. in.
    AMDG

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  19. Mac

    Heh. “You really more or less know the whole story pretty early on, and you can’t talk about the movie at all without giving most of it away.” Right, that’s more or less what I was thinking. I suppose it’s a spoiler of sorts to intimate that there isn’t going to be some big shock or surprise, as the trailer sort of hints.
    By the way, I also liked the music, which sounds a lot like a band called Marconi Union. The music in the movie sounded like it could have been bits and pieces of MU tracks.

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  20. Mac

    Oh, and by the way, Grumpy, I think this would be an excellent choice for a film and theology, or film and religion, class, though it would be moral theology. There’s no mention of any sort of spirituality, but it has a really strong moral core, and as we’re saying here it treats sin (though of course without using that word) very seriously. I wrote this post quite hastily last night, just to point people toward it, but one could discuss it for a long time.

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  21. Janet

    After I watched this, I kept thinking about it for at least two weeks. Kept seeing more and more implications.
    AMDG

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  22. Mac

    Yeah, that’s the way I’ve been.
    “Don’t wreck your life.” Heh. I guess that’s good advice, but probably of limited utility, since people don’t generally realize they’re wrecking their lives till they’ve already done it.

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  23. Louise

    I guess that’s true, Maclin. But it makes me as “What things would wreck my life if I did them?”

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  24. Rob G

    The music was composed by Dickon Hinchliffe, who also did the music for Winter’s Bone, one of the Red Riding films, and a few other things. He was a member of the band Tindersticks.
    Marconi Union sound interesting — I’ll have to check them out.
    “I kept thinking about it for at least two weeks. Kept seeing more and more implications.”
    One of the marks of a good film, generally speaking.
    Another recent film also starring Hardy is worth seeing as well, but I don’t think it’s on video yet — The Drop. Very different sort of film, but with a similarly interesting moral, even religious dimension. Hardy is brilliant in this movie also, playing a nice but somewhat dim Brooklyn bartender who gets into trouble with the mob due to the actions of his uncle, the bar’s owner, played by James Gandolfini.

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  25. Grumpy

    Yes Rob, I am watching the Danish one. I have gathered there is an American remake but, although I love my adopted country, it annoys me that they remake European and Scandinavian TV series! As if the content of Broad Church or Life on Mars cannot be interesting if it is not set in New England or Manhatten with American characters! So even if I had known about it I would not buy the American remake!
    What a thriller! I have got a house guest staying with me and although he is not watching it, I find The Killing so scarey that I am really glad he is sleeping upstairs while I watch.
    I didn’t read the rest of this conversation because I want to avoid the spoilers. I put my Locke in my cart and heartily second Rob G’s recommendation of The Killing. I am told one does not find out who done it until the second series (I bought Series I and II).

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  26. Grumpy

    By the way I just glanced above and saw that Rob G recommends The Drop! I saw it in the cinema about five months back. It was recommended on a kind of Christian web site called Acculturated. I thought it was an excellent film.

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  27. Mac

    I’ll check Netflix for The Drop.
    Louise, maybe someone will see that bumper sticker at just the right moment.
    I want to see the original of The Killing, but last time I checked it wasn’t available in the U.S.
    Anybody seen The Fall? It may be one of those Netflix-produced things. Anyway, it’s a serial-killer drama set in Northern Ireland. I watched the first series and saw recently that the second will be available soon, but I’m not sure I want to continue. It’s really creepy.
    Now that I think about it, maybe we discussed it here–I was complaining that I didn’t think Gillian Anderson’s English accent was convincing, but others said it’s actually very accurate for a certain type. Or did that happen in the offline world?…

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  28. Mac

    I’m thinking in particular of a Marconi Union album called Distance. The fragments of music in Locke reminded me of its less rhythmic moments.
    I mentioned this in the earlier discussion of Locke–that he played the extremely vicious leader of a Jewish criminal gang in Peaky Blinders. Never would have expected the actor who played that role to be capable of something like Locke.

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  29. Marianne

    I’ve seen both seasons of The Fall. It is very creepy, and I also find Gillian Anderson’s English accent irritating; it just sounds fake to me, something about how she elongates her vowels just a bit too much.
    More than the creepiness having to do with the actual serial killing going on, I was disturbed by how they made the killer into a loving, kind, and caring father. I thought serial killers were sociopaths at the very least, and that doesn’t jibe with that sort of father, does it?

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  30. Paul

    I happened on The Killing randomly one night one TV, without knowing what it was, and watched the bit I happened on. It was pretty good, but it turned out to be the denouement. I’ve been wondering whether it’s worth going back to watch the rest, having so far only seen the key 20 minutes that gives the plot away.

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  31. Grumpy

    I think you inadvertenly wrecked it dor yourself
    Its a pot boiler

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  32. Rob G

    I’ve watched the American version of The Killing too, Grumpy, and while it’s pretty good, it’s not nearly as good as the original, which is a stunner. And btw, it’s the American one that reveals the killer at the end of the second season. In the Danish one you find out at the end of series one.
    The Danish series has 20 1 hr. episodes, while the American one has 26 episodes of 45 minutes each.(It ran for two seasons of 13 episodes.) If you got the second season of the Danish one, no worries — it’s very good too.

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  33. Rob G

    “Never would have expected the actor who played that role to be capable of something like Locke.”
    Yes, and his character in The Drop is completely different again. If you didn’t know it was the same guy who was in Locke you’d never guess it.

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  34. Grumpy

    Glad to hear it Rob!
    Im on episode 8 and doing my nut

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  35. Rob G

    I love that they do a “cliffhanger” at the end of every episode, yet it never feels contrived.
    And the music, which is fabulous, adds a lot to that sense of tension. When that main theme kicks in a few minutes to the end of the episode, you just know that something’s going to happen…those endings are just brilliantly done.
    I don’t know how those folks who had to wait a week for the next episode did it!

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  36. Grumpy

    Yes, so far I’ve been watching one a day for nine days. My house guest thinks I’m an addict! I don’t think he yet realizes there are twenty episodes in the series and a second series to come! Even on the night when we went out to dinner with some colleagues when we got back I settled won for my nightly terror! I’m down to where Rama has had his alibi confirmed by Kemal and the father of the murdered girl is in prison and the mother is discovering they are in trouble financially. I think the murder is either to do with the house the father bought or someone deliberately trying to wreck that Lib Dem guy, Troel, ‘s political career. But I’m hopeless at guessing whodoneit. I just sit there being terrified.

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  37. Rob G

    LOL — there was one night when I actually watched 3 episodes back-to-back. “Couldn’t put it down,” as they say!

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  38. Louise

    At least Paul only wrecked his movie viewing and not his whole life. 🙂
    “Louise, maybe someone will see that bumper sticker at just the right moment.”
    I hope so. Otherwise it will be a shameful waste of glue, paper and ink. 🙂

    Reply
  39. Louise

    “Now that I think about it, maybe we discussed it here–I was complaining that I didn’t think Gillian Anderson’s English accent was convincing, but others said it’s actually very accurate for a certain type. Or did that happen in the offline world?…”
    I seem to have a very vague recollection of that conversation.

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  40. Mac

    “3 episodes back to back” I think we did that more than once with The Wire. And Breaking Bad. I’m not sure but I think we may have done as many as four or five at the end of BB. And if “done” sounds reminiscent of drug talk, it’s appropriate.
    Re Gillian Anderson’s accent: an actual British person told me that the accent was accurate for a certain kind of Londoner, which I could only take to mean that their speech has become somewhat Americanized.
    Marianne, re the killer in The Fall: I wondered about that, too. But then there have certainly been psychopathic serial killers who were able to appear normal to everyone around them, and hide their crimes for many years. So it may not be that far-fetched. (By the way, to others reading this: this is not a plot spoiler, as the viewer knows more or less from the beginning who the killer is.)

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  41. Marianne

    I really got hooked on The Killing/Forbrydelsen, and have watched all three seasons and sometimes watched a few episodes in one sitting.
    Not sure, but I think maybe I like season three the most. What I like most of all is Sofie Grabol’s character, even if by the end of the series, some of her moves become pretty predictable, she’s very watchable.

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  42. Grumpy

    I didn’t realize there was a third season, Marianne. Glad you like it too, and it’s not just me! I agree, I like ‘Sarah Lund’ very much as a person (so to speak).

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  43. Rob G

    FYI…the film ‘The Drop’ with Tom Hardy (Locke) and James Gandolfini is now out on DVD. Probably streaming somewhere too, I imagine. Very good little crime drama with an interesting moral/religious dimension and another great turn by Hardy.

    Reply

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