Locke - a Film Review

Spoiler Alert! If you're planning to see Stephen Knight's Locke, stop reading now - I'm going to discuss the entire movie.

It's tricky to make a film succeed when only one character is on-screen, even more so in the limited space of a car. Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) is project manager for a high-level concrete company, and on the eve of a pour of historic proportions, he is interrupted: a woman with whom he had a single sexual encounter is pregnant, and her baby is coming early - coming now. As we learn, his own father abandoned him, only showing up when Locke was an adult. Indeed, our protagonist's success in life - his attention to detail, his reliability, his calm and professional way of handling problems - may all be attributable to rejection of everything his father was: selfish, drunk, ineffectual, weak.

He makes a choice, at the beginning of the film, to be with Bethan, a woman he hardly knows (and as he assures her, feels no affection for), as she gives birth. She is 43, alone, and this baby is her last chance at joy. And Locke, whatever it costs him, claims the child as his own, and will be there with its fearful distraught lonely mother. In addition to being the eve of the Big Pour, this is also the night of a big soccer match. His sons are excited, his wife is even wearing the team jersey. And he is driving away from them all: from the job for which he has primary responsibility, from the family life he would rather be part of.

On the one hand, the simultaneity of these events is a contrivance. On the other hand, life is exactly like this, challenging our priorities and our humanity. When we first learn of his errand, we think he is leaving his wife for "the other woman" - but very quickly we realize the two women are poles apart in his thinking. He tells Bethan they hardly know each other, he is only coming because he is set on doing the right thing. His wife Katrina's reaction is not surprising, given that he is in a car and not face-to-face with her: by their third conversation, she informs him that the difference between one night of infidelity and none, is a world of difference, an intolerable breach. His explanation: a rainy night, two bottles of wine, the flush of success from completing a difficult job (Bethan was his assistant on-site for several months), and a profoundly lonely person. He says he felt sorry for her. Katrina isn't buying that. And the fact that he is choosing an out-of-wedlock child over the rest of his life, only strengthens her conviction that there's more to this liaison than he is letting on.

Locke has abandoned his job at a critical juncture: the night before the early morning start of pouring 300-plus trucks' worth of concrete for the foundation of a skyscraper. If any of the concrete is inferior, or the rebar set incorrectly, the whole structure is vulnerable - and he is clearly a man who takes pride in his work, this project the capstone to his career. He knows his boss will fire him, which indeed he does. Yet he calls his foreman Donal to walk him through the procedures of the night, which are numerous and nerve-wracking, so that the project will succeed despite his absence. His loyalty to his work is both admirable and exasperating - if it's so important to him, why is he not at that construction office instead of hectoring Donal over the details? But he has chosen a human over a building, a life over a job. At the same time, he has devastated the lives of those closest to him: his wife, his sons, his boss, his foreman. Is it fair for this birth to trump everyone else in his life? Is he really doing "the right thing"? We understand why he makes his choice - but do we concur?

This is one of those movies that can spark profound reflection on morals, ethics, and how the ripples from a seemingly insignificant action can change everything.

Quibbles: we're familiar with product placement in movies; this is a veritable infomercial for BMW. The contrast between the concrete-encrusted boots he removes before getting in, and the sleek new car, shows that this man, successful enough in his work to afford a luxury car, is still a get-your-hands-dirty kind of manager. But I confess I gagged a bit.
My major complaint is that Locke is a poster-child for distracted driving, yet there are no consequences. He has a flow of wrenching conversations, he initiates calls, he leafs through and reads from a folder, and gazing in the rear-view mirror he addresses his dead father, all while tooling down the motorway. Emergency vehicles scream past from time to time, he is passed by tractor-trailers - and the fact that his mind is all over the place apparently has no effect on his driving. Only at the beginning does he sit at a green light while a truck behind him honks repeatedly - for the rest of the movie he drives competently. Not likely!