Locke

Steven Knight built the crisis out of an appointment, not a threat: a concrete pour due next morning. The idea came from his time on building sites, where arriving concrete sets a deadline that cannot move. The BMW was towed down the M6 on a low flatbed trailer; the crew also used a privately owned stretch of road. Three RED Epic cameras sat in different positions in the car each night, and every card swap brought a new angle and a new lens. The script was played start to finish around sixteen times. Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos has said he wanted to shoot it as a spacecraft, not a car. The phone voices were not dubbed later. The other actors sat in a hotel conference room near the motorway, a live line open to the car, playing the calls in real time. Tom Hardy’s Welsh accent was a choice too: Knight wanted working class without the associations of a London, Birmingham or Liverpool voice. It premiered at Venice, and Knight won Best Screenplay at the British Independent Film Awards; Hardy and editor Justine Wright were nominated. A good fit if a windscreen and a call list are enough to hold all 85 minutes. Not for viewers who will want to see, even once, the people at the other end.