![]() He’s made this decision before the film begins and constantly reasserts, "I will do what needs to be done". Faced with so much complexity, there’s only one thing he knows for sure: he needs to be in London for the birth of his child. Locke, like his namesake, believes in practical solutions. The birth is so premature that Locke has not yet told his wife about his mistake, or even quite explained it to himself. Yet he was moved by her loneliness and now, seven months later, she is giving birth to his child. Over two bottles of wine, they began chatting. She’s fragile and needy, she’s certainly "no oil painting" and, in fact, she's "quite old, 43 or something". However, whilst away on a work trip, he met Bethan. He is usually a dependable family man, devoted to his wife and two sons. Locke has made a mistake of the kind that causes everything to come crashing down. The foundations of Locke’s life have a crack, and it’s not long before the whole thing will collapse. You make one mistake, one little f****** mistake, and the whole world comes crashing down around you!" This, it transpires, is the very heart of the film. Cracks appear, and they will grow and grow, and one day the whole thing will collapse. Locke himself explains: "If the concrete at the base of my building is cracked, if it slips half an inch, cracks appear. It rapidly becomes a metaphor for Locke’s own life: solid, but fragile. It clings to him, and in return he loves it with a fierce dedication. He tramples it through his family home on the soles of his shoes, where it dries into stubborn prints. And most of all, you do it for the f****** concrete, because it is delicate as blood."Ĭoncrete follows Locke wherever he goes. You do it for the air that will be displaced. Speaking on his car phone, he explains to his assistant why he is so dedicated to the project: "You do it for the piece of sky we are stealing with our building. At sunset it will cast a shadow that will be a mile long." He becomes surprisingly lyrical when he talks about it. It will be visible from twenty miles away. Okay? My building will alter the water table, and squeeze granite. Locke possessively refers to it as "my building", describing it with frightening enthusiasm: "Eventually, when my building is complete, it will be 55 floors high, and it will weigh 2,223,000 metric tons. Local roads will be closed in order for 218 trucks to arrive with a highly specific grade of concrete, which will form the foundation of a new skyscraper. At 5:45am, Ivan will oversee "the biggest concrete pour in Europe outside of nuclear and military projects". The action of the film takes place on the eve of his most significant achievement yet. JOHN LOCKE THE THINKING ROCK HOW TOHe knows how to solve any problem and his reputation is unblemished. He files his reports early, carefully checks every piece of machinery by hand and dedicates himself entirely to each project. He works as a construction foreman and is known by everyone as a master of organisation. Ivan Locke is a methodical, meticulous man who likes to be in control. The traffic is light, but the subject matter is heavy this intimate portrait of a single man at a critical moment reveals some important truths about the human spirit under pressure. Technology keeps him connected to the outside world: his car phone rings insistently, filling the vehicle with the voices and personalities that make up Locke’s life. We see no other faces but his, in close-up, for 85 solid minutes. Now, in Locke, Tom Hardy isolates himself in the comfortable interior of a BMW. For All Is Lost, Robert Redford found himself trapped alone on a sinking boat. In Gravity, Sandra Bullock faced the cosmic claustrophobia of space. In the last year, we’ve seen some remarkable chamber-piece performances. Over the course of this 85-minute race down the M6, the journey turns out to be far more interesting than the destination: we’re hearing about the construction of a building, but we might be watching the demolition of a life. Maintaining his calm, he speaks to his wife, sons, boss, assistant, council officials, and a woman he barely knows. JOHN LOCKE THE THINKING ROCK SERIESAs he drives, he makes and receives a series of phone calls that reveal a surprising secret. Instead of sticking to these plans, Ivan gets into his car after work and begins driving with determination towards London. Warning: This article contains major plot spoilers. ![]()
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