Locke

A British construction foreman (Tom Hardy) drives from Birmingham to London late one night, spending the entire drive on his hands-free cellphone trying to explain to his co-workers why he won't be there for an important job the next day, to his wife and teenage sons why he won't be home for dinner that night, and to a needy, neurotic woman in London that he's on his way. An hour-and-a-half in a car with a guy on the phone—it sounds like a crackbrained stunt, but writer-director Steven Knight pulls it off brilliantly, thanks to his own riveting script, the wonderful solo performance by Hardy, and those of the unseen voices on the phone: Ruth Wilson, Ben Daniels, Andrew Scott, Olivia Colman. Haris Zambarloukos' cinematography, despite the confined quarters on one “set,” is almost abstractly beautiful.