A pal wanted to talk about Tom Hardy, which eventually led to me wanting to rewatch Locke, the tiny 2014 film where Tom Hardy’s secretly strangest character just spends 80 minutes driving down the M6 while (mostly) steadily trying to cajole everyone in his life to calm down. This time I finally realized that must be part of why this stressed movie still works on me like a lullaby: so much of the dialogue is delivered to be soothing.

The concept at play is that we begin the movie with a successful construction foreman getting into his car at a building site in Birmingham, and then he proceeds to drive toward London in real time while his life cracks like badly poured concrete (to pre-empt the metaphor) one hands-free phone call at a time. Things that will not compete for your attention in this literal Tom Hardy vehicle:

– scene changes
– other people on screen

because there aren’t any!

Instead, we see only Thomas Edward Hardy in a cozy sweater & his nicest beard, serving up top-grade Resting Concerned Face while speaking in an accent that is PURPORTEDLY Welsh, no one believes this, but it’s as melodic as it is odd so I offer that you simply think of it as Hardish and just go with it. Hardy is a remarkably compelling actor even when half his face is obscured, which is weirdly often, and for once he’s not playing someone wearing a mask or even remotely connected to organized crime—refreshment. Instead, you just get to watch him somehow completely anchor your attention as he tries to remotely explain where a folder is to a slightly drunk Andrew Scott.

On that note, when I first watched this six years ago I definitely did not adequately appreciate the depth of the voice cast beyond the aurally mesmerizing duo of Not Welsh Tom Hardy and Full Irish Andrew Scott, and I really must must impress the rest of the cast list upon you right now: Olivia Coleman, Ruth Wilson, Ben Daniels, and baby Tom Holland. The filming construction they used here, and I think this is neat, is that they essentially shot this movie like a play: each night for a week, Hardy would get pulled down the motorway on a low flatbed trailer, and they would just run through it as written with the rest of the actors genuinely calling him up from a hotel conference room they were all camped in. The resulting film was edited together from the best bits of these complete runs.

One critique I will raise is that the most interesting version of a movie that is composed of just phone calls and one actor’s face is if it truly is just that, and as such we need to lose the couple of theatrical soliloquies to the empty backseat of his car. They seem to exist outside the established constraints in a way that feels sort of like a cheat, and are also easily the most broad parts of both the script and Hardy’s otherwise very very good performance, so it’s easy, we just 86 those and I promise we can do the father issues aspect of Ivan Locke’s character in just a handful of spare yet heavy allusions in dialogue that frankly will probably pack five-fold the punch anyway, why am I phrasing this like I am actively producing this movie in this moment, okay–

Something I think Locke does really beautifully, I have no notes, is how it’s tense & emotional but is all strung together with that familiar hypnotic lull that comes from driving alone at night with the lights of the road sliding over you. This movie feels like driving home from the airport after your late flight gets in. This movie is a poem to that yellowy urban glow over the major roadways at night.

Most importantly: you watch this movie and you are going to know what C6 is forever. You will not be able to help not only learning about concrete, but caring about concrete. Truly, what this movie is about, in order, is 1. concrete, 2. project management, 3. when you’re someone who believes everything can be project management if you can juuust get your little grid-patterned cuffs to stay rolled up over your sweater sleeves.