Written by Robert Scucci | Published
I hate talking on the phone. When my parents call me, my first question is, “Why don’t you text me first to see if I’m taking calls today?” Not because I don’t like my parents. On the contrary. I just don’t like to fill awkward silences with small talk, and I’ve never been good at chit-ize, even with people I care about. Tom Hardy’s Ivan Locke in 2013 The lockon the other hand, he can dial and speak with such urgency and fluency that if he hosted a conference on phone etiquette, I’d probably pay $50 to attend.
Considered by many to be one of Hardy’s best performances, The lock he is a busy man in his car as he makes the 90 minute trip to the hospital to witness the birth of the child he conceived while having sex outside of marriage. There are no cutcutways to show what people on the other side are doing. It’s just Tom Hardy in a car, shifting gears, hitting the highway, dialing, and confessing his sins or giving serious instructions, depending on who’s on the line.
Tense, 90-Minutes Drive
When we are introduced to Ivan Locke, he is intense but in full control of his abilities. However The lock billed as a psychological thriller, there is no unreliable narrator here. You have good reason to take him at his word. Are you depressed? Of course, and for good reason. A production foreman is about to oversee the largest concrete pour in European history, his health deteriorates in every measurable way, and he tries to reckon with the mistakes of the past as all his stress points converge on this one night.
Ivan Locke’s main source of stress is the premature birth of a child he conceived with his former co-worker Bethan (Olivia Colman). Another faithful man, Ivan became weak for a while during the three-month labor, and that lapse resulted in Bethan’s pregnancy. Although he has not seen her since then, he is tormented by the fact that his father abandoned him. Even without romantic feelings for Bethan, she refuses to let her child be born without a father.
Because Bethan’s water breaks the night before the biggest job of her life, Ivan has to pass the torch to her trainer Donal (Andrew Scott), which understandably angers her boss, Gareth (Ben Daniels), who quickly fires her for jumping ship at the last minute. Between calls to Donal, who is known to drink a lot of alcohol after 17:00 and needs to make sure the essentials are there to empty the water, Ivan calls home, confesses his infidelity to his wife Katrina (Ruth Wilson), and tries to have fun with his sons Eddie (Tom Holland) and Sean (Bill Milner), who have yet to tell the full story.
As the phone in his BMW lights up with voicemails, missed calls, and calls waiting on another line while he is driving towards the hospital, Ivan Locke also teaches his absent father as if he is sitting in the passenger seat. It’s his way of dealing with his demons and convincing himself that even though his life as he knows it is over, he’s doing the right thing.
High Level Voice Performance
While it may sound boring to watch a man talk on the phone in his car for 90 minutes, The lock anything but. Whether he’s delivering shocking news to his wife, reassuring the mother of his new baby, being chewed out by his boss, chewing out his trainer, or comforting his sons, he remains calm and composed in conversations that would give any sane person a heart attack.
Tom Hardy doesn’t do all the heavy lifting alone. Everyone he talks to carries his own emotional weight through the conversation without appearing on screen, which is no small feat.
Although critics often call Locke’s performance Tom Hardy, the only thing that makes that assessment difficult for me is that Max is crazy: Fury Road. Sorry. I know it’s a completely different type of movie and comparing apples to oranges, but if we’re talking about the single best thing he’s ever done, I’m going with the greatest action movie of all time. It comes in as a very close second, Lockethat doubles as a street thriller, it’s definitely worth your time if you want to see how you can handle the toughest conversations of your life without losing your cool in the process.
The lock is streaming on Netflix.
