Well, to continue where I left off yesterday, lets get back to it. Time to dive into my ten favorite films of 2014. Tenth Favorite Flick of 2014: Locke Sometimes, less is more, and I dont think there is a movie this year that epitomizes that philosophy more than the independent tour de force Locke. Also responsible for writing Eastern Promises and creating the incredible TV series Peaky Blinders, Steven Knight crafts an experimental one-man show in real-time as we follow Tom Hardys always-polite Ivan Locke as he abandons both his job and family in order to make an imprtnt trip to a hospital an hour and a half away. Over the course of the drive, Ivan interacts with several people (including his wife and boss) over speak phone as he explains, argues, and pleads with them why he has to drop everything for this one, all-consuming trip. Now I understand if the idea of riding for ninety minutes in a car with just Tom Hardy may not sound appealing to you, but hear me out with this one. On the one hand, this is a very modulated and well-crafted performance from Tom Hardy, who demonstrates the same skill he possessed in Bronson: carrying an entire movie on his shoulders like Atlas if he was a stage actor. This is a character for whom the entirety of his world is crumbling down around him because of one single mistake, but because of his determination to see through it he remains as calm and rational as he can despite the people freaking out at him on the phone. Its a character that is unlike anything Tom Hardy has ever done before, and as such, Hardys performance is so transformative that I think it is a major travesty that he wont get any Oscar buzz for this role since I think it is one of the best of the year. Also sprinkled onto this movie is the tightly edited cinematography and the fascinating screenplay from Steven Knight. For the former, Knight finds inventive ways to keep a bottle story like this visually interesting with the great usage of light and finding neat ways to stage the angles in the car. And for the latter, Steven Knight tackles a theme that is a major concern of mine and that I applaud him for: the detriment of honesty and responsibility. So many times are we as people caught in lies or catch others in lies, and the inevitable scolding of why werent you honest with me in the first place always rears its head. But in Ivan Lockes case, we see the flip-side of that coin as his immediate owning up to his mistake causes only hostility and loss for him throughout the car ride. Its fascinating to me that we as people tout honesty so highly and yet, much like in Locke, if we find any chink in someones armor of credibility, we treat them venomously and cease to trust them. Everything in this movie, from the acting and writing to even the cinematography, serves as a testament and exploration to this theme and I think it does well that despite all the other great movies that came after it this year, I couldnt leave Locke out of my top ten.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 18:29:35 +0000
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