There are plenty of films set in confined spaces. Trains, planes and single rooms are common, and even a phone booth. However, this is the only film I’ve seen set entirely – save for a very brief opening scene – in a car!
Tom Hardy plays Ivan Locke, a construction site manager and usually faithful family man. The film follows his journey from work to a hospital where a woman he barely knows, Bethan, is about to give birth.
The child is the result of a drunken one night stand with Bethan. He drives while almost constantly on the phone: to the expectant mother and various staff at the hospital; while he is trying to break the news to his devastated wife; and, to keep in contact with his sons who were expecting to watch a big football game with him. On top of that, his latest building project has reached a critical stage.
He tries to talk a co-worker, Donal, through his tasks in preparation for a massive concrete delivery the next day. He is so proud of what he does, and the building he is creating, that he carries on trying to instruct Donal even though he knows that leaving the site will certainly result in his getting the sack.
Now, that synopsis may not sound that thrilling and I have seen plenty of negative reaction to this film. One critic I normally admire, Dean Treadway from Filmicability and Movie Geeks United, walked out part way through it. I found it compelling from start to finish. As Ivan’s journey continued, the woozy and hypnotic effect of the film completely pulled me in.
Tom Hardy as Ivan is brilliant, despite only having to act against remote voices. I found it much better than Joaquin Phoenix’s performance which had similar constraints in Her. The always reliably good Olivia Coleman plays Bethan and all of the remaining voice cast are impressive.
The writer and director Steven Knight skilfully delivers a very suspenseful film on the slightest of premises, and is aided by a beautiful score by Dickon Hinchliffe with simple (but exemplary) cinematography by Haris Zambarloukos. This is certainly one of the year’s most unusual films and it is destined to be one of the best too.
Rating: 9 out of 10