19/01/2021
The new Warner Bros/HBO release, "Locked Down," starring Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, makes use of the early days of the Covid pandemic shut down in London to tell a story of reluctant jewel thievery, but is the plot really worth wading through the comfortable middle class self-centered neuroses of its main characters?
It takes more than half the movie to get to the meat of the plot, where the unusual circumstances of removing a highly prized gem from Harrod's becomes temptation in full view to Linda (played by Hathaway), who spends far too long making herself completely unsympathetic by whining about how hard it is to be a more than gainfully employed CEO of a marketing firm which just keeps promoting her and doesn't require anything more difficult than firing one small team of employees, holding meetings via zoom while half clad in pajamas and day drinking, and going to Harrod's in person to pack up a small display of goods.
Her recently estranged partner, Paxton (played by Ejiofor), is also going through a personal crisis, but for admittedly more understandable reasons. Forced to shelter in place with Linda who broke up with him right as the shut down began, the ex-con is out of work, and exhibits his distress by loudly reading poetry to his neighborhood in the street at night and taking his beloved motorcycle, which he has to imminently sell, for one last ride, recklessly blowing through stop lights on eerily empty streets and outrunning a police tail.
The characters begin the movie bemoaning how hard it is to be in lock down with each other, but also state that this is only two weeks into the lock down! How can we, as an audience nearing the full year mark of a world wide crisis which has shuttered businesses, driven families into poverty, killed millions and sickened millions more, has forced most of us to avoid any social contact or seeing those dearest to us, and imposed countless restrictions on our lives and freedoms to the point where we finally feel like we can't live another minute this way-- how can we possibly do anything but laugh in derision at these totally comfortable characters who have almost nothing to lose, and dwell in self-indulgent whining about how hard their lives are and how they can't stand it? Maybe one day this will be a fun story told through the lens of this strange time and set of circumstances that we're living through, but I personally feel like this makes a mockery of the awful reality most of us are living in today.
