As Locked Down continues to receive some harsh criticism, including the decree that it’s not the pandemic movie we needed (apparently, only Contagion can still fill that role), it warrants noting that the film is about more than merely “being confined during COVID restrictions.” The title itself has a double meaning, taking into account that when one locks something down, it can refer to a relationship. For Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor), his desire not to lose the love of his life, Linda (Anne Hathaway)–whom he refers to as his “wife” loosely, as they seem to simply be long-time “partners” (the grossest word to describe a couple)–is the key component to what is, technically, this “rom-com.”
Directed by Doug Liman, the film is, in many ways, a return to his more “indie” roots, despite a star-studded cast featured mostly on Zoom calls. After all, this is the man who brought us Getting In, Swingers and Go. That was before the Hollywood blockbusters came along in the form of The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Fair Game and American Made. Thus, Locked Down seems to possess a certain schizophrenic tone in terms of wanting to be both “lo-fi” and “Hollywood” (regardless of being filmed in London). Even if that former element was more a circumstance of the filming limitations of a pandemic rather than a conscious directorial decision.
Writer Steven Knight, who was previously accused of bringing us the worst movie of 2019 (also starring Anne Hathaway) with Serenity (which, like Locked Down, isn’t as pannable as the critics have made it out to be), has a play-like sensibility that offers many notable exchanges between Paxton and Linda. That Ejiofor previously worked with Knight on a worthier “cerebral” script, Dirty Pretty Things, signals the actor’s familiar ability to enliven Knight’s particular writing style. This is, in part, how, during the opening “sequence” (at one point featuring a meandering hedgehog in the yard), he is able to make almost four and a half minutes of ranting about loneliness, isolation and how Linda broke up with him but now they’re forced to remain in the same house during lockdown somewhat watchable. After this little monologue to his half-brother, David (Dulé Hill), and his wife, Maria (Jazmyn Simon), they’re eager to get off the call with him when his food delivery arrives (left at the door like contraband as the delivery person waits from afar to make sure Paxton gets it).
Maria then calls Linda, who proceeds to tell something like her account of why she had to end it with Paxton, which is, indeed, because he hasn’t been able to advance over the past ten years they’ve spent together. It’s here that the backstory remains rather nebulous, as there is talk of them initially meeting in South Dakota yet for some reason Linda had a long “career” at Harrods before becoming one of the CEOs of Miracore, a luxury fashion goods company. One has to wonder how she snagged a job at either, what with getting a visa being so difficult (even in pre-Brexit times) and the notion that she never married Paxton. But this will be one of many odd plot holes we must ignore.
And, numerous plot holes aside, there is value in Locked Down. Maybe it’s not the most “struggling” tale that could’ve been told about the effects of stay-at-home orders and closures, but it’s clearly trying to tick as many boxes as possible on the “resonance” scale (including an obligatory toilet paper joke: “How many asses do you have, mate?”). Complete with the “proletariat’s” increased rage and desire to fuck over capitalism and the generic man in a suit that represents it. This shines through when Linda is forced to fire the bulk of her team–and right after one of them texted her to say he’s quitting, effective immediately, due to the skeevy nature of what their company promotes. It is then that another co-worker on the call remarks, “Just been watching David Attenborough documentaries, I imagine–and he snapped.” Because we’re all willing to keep whoring ourselves out so long as the job is there–until we’re betrayed by the very entity we’ve wasted our lives on, hence this man’s ability to put a “Pollyanna” spin on the resignation. That is, before Linda fires him and the others.
Recognizing that something within herself has deeply changed, while Paxton seems to remain the free-spirited renegade he always was–thanks in part to a criminal record stemmed from a one-off incident involving self-defense–Linda fears for the health of her very soul. This being a revelation compounded by “the hours.” Spent in lockdown, with nothing and no one to truly distract as was the case before.
Meanwhile, Paxton proceeds to further lose it as he goes outside to read poetry in the middle of the street, shouting, “Does anyone here on our lovely Portland Street prison want to hear a little poem?” The West End. How posh (thanks to Linda’s CEO salary).
She calls out to him, “What are you doing?” He replies, “I’m entertaining our fellow inmates.” He then proceeds to read “Stand Up” by D.H. Lawrence, featuring such applicable lines to the present state of complacency as, “Stand up, but not for Jesus!/It’s a little late for that./Stand up for justice and a jolly life/I’ll hold your hat/Stand up, stand up for justice,/ye swindled little blokes!/Stand up and do some punching,/give ’em a few hard pokes./Stand up for jolly justice/you haven’t got much to lose:/a job you don’t like and a scanty chance/for a dreary little booze.”
Indeed, this is precisely the headspace that Paxton is embodying, having lost his job (“furloughed,” rather), having to sell his motorcycle (the very thing that represents both his rebelliousness and his relationship with Linda) and, now, coming to terms that Linda will no longer be in his life. That lockdown is the ultimate form of limbo before he is thrust into the bowels of hell. Enter Malcolm (Ben Kingsley, in the most random role of all–apart from when another Ben, Stiller, shows up), Paxton’s ex-ish boss, to offer a proposition: agree to make some high-value deliveries under a false identity (otherwise he wouldn’t be able to clear the security checks under his name). One of those places where he would need to transport goods from is Harrods. Where, not so coincidentally, Linda is also slated to pack up some of her own product for Miracore, as she is the only one with the knowledgeability and trustworthiness to do so. Or so the corporation that owns her would think.
Before Paxton’s illicit delivering even gets off the ground, it’s already fucked. For someone else who works with Malcolm has given him the bright idea to use the name Edgar Allen Poe for his false identity. At least it’s not spelled in the correct way: Edgar Allan Poe. And, what’s more, a lack of literary zeal within the average person (particularly your working class types) makes it possible that Paxton could eke by without suspicion as a result of this poorly chosen alternate moniker.
As Linda’s cigarette intake increases over the stress and amorality of her job, she gives her own soliloquy to Paxton about how she’s basically Ariel having her voice extracted by some corporate Ursula as she paints the picture, “You know how when people say something abstract I can sometimes actually see it? When he said ‘emerging markets,’ I saw this thing, this shape appearing from under the table and swimming around our legs… and then the big voice raised a toast to corruption and everybody laughed ironically… and this thing, this shape it was swimming around my fucking legs.” In short, that’s her in the spotlight losing her religion for a bit more dough and a grander title–and is it all really worth it when all she wants to do is be an artist? In London, that used to be something easier to do, before it emulated the same path as finance and tech-driven cities like New York and San Francisco. Somewhat appropriately, Brexit and Boris are never even mentioned, for that would make a movie about lockdown in London too bleak to bear.
And perhaps it was Knight’s attempt to brighten the content that gave rise to a heist plotline that doesn’t really quite fit in with the rest of what’s happening. Keeping the film as a dialogue-driven glimpse into the deterioration and then re-appreciation of a relationship in lockdown might have been the harder but more rewarding approach to this narrative. But no, we have a diamond suddenly at play. A very valuable diamond that will miraculously have lax security during its transportation process due to COVID restrictions.
Faintly alluding to the diamond while also suggesting they have sex despite now being broken up, Paxton then makes her circle back to that subject the following day. Finally, she pours out her heist idea and insists, “We’re gonna decide in the moment.” Paxton corrects, “Or let the moment decide.” She asks, “What’s the difference?” Paxton explains, “Fate versus free will. Who controls our destiny? Is everything part of a plan or do we fuck things up for ourselves?” Probably a combo platter.
In any case, the goal to become millionaires in order to buy the time Linda would need to work on her art seems a bit ironic to aim for at the precise moment when time is the gift bequeathed to everyone thanks to lockdown conditions. But perhaps she needs to know she doesn’t have to give her hours to anyone ever again in order to be truly “inspired.” That she won’t have to worry about “finding better work” with the cushion of money at her disposal. Leading one to wonder about another plot hole: is she going to keep pretending to work at her company for a bit after the theft so as not to arouse suspicion about why she would leave so abruptly?
Reading on the street from another classic poem, T.S. Eliot’s “The Fire Sermon” (from The Waste Land), Paxton shouts, “She turns and looks a moment in the glass,/Hardly aware of her departed lover;/Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:/’Well now that’s done: I’m glad it’s over.'” Is that how Linda would feel about him if they went their separate ways after stealing the money? To Paxton, the money is a chance for them to build a bridge to one another again. For her, she would see it as a chance for true freedom to remain apart–or so she claims. But again, with the primary message of this movie being about how lockdown has forced everyone to reassess their priorities, Linda knows deep down that she hasn’t fallen out of love with Paxton.
And so the Harrods portion of Locked Down commences, reiterating that no one in the movie is wearing a mask (and if they do, it’s very ephemerally)–giving one, in fact, an accurate sense of how the virus spread so rapidly and indefatigably in the UK (paving the way, evidently, for the new strain). To that point, the best choice made about Locked Down is that it was not set in America. For it might have been much more of a filming challenge to get across the concept that anyone was acting as though they were locked down. What’s more, the filmmakers would have needed to secure the distracting sound effects of gunshots randomly firing in the background outside the window for authenticity’s sake.
Without giving away how the lackluster heist goes down, it’s better to remark upon Paxton’s final poetry choice: “Counting the Beats” by Robert Graves. A dual purpose poem for addressing both the abstraction of time’s passage (or lack thereof) in lockdown and the surprising renewed romance that can arise while in such a time loop, Paxton cries out, “You, love, and I,/(He whispers) you and I,/And if no more than only you and I/What care you or I?/Counting the beats,/Counting the slow heart beats,/The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,/Wakeful they lie.”
At the end of the credits, the words, “Dedicated to the NHS and Healthcare Workers Around the World” appear on the screen. Though, admittedly, they did probably deserve a better film to represent their own very separate struggle from the faction of people clapping and banging pots together at a specific time of evening, topped with the conclusion to a running gag about shitty bread-baking skills.
