Locked Down: Observing a Pandemic from within a Pandemic
Locked Down
★Directed by Doug Liman★
★Written by Steven Knight★
The review:
This is a light affair* that might be handy to have on tap in ten to fifteen years when kids who were very young or were born after 2021 start asking questions.** It’s all there for you to point to*** and covered with a veneer of a story about a couple on their last legs as a couple. Ejiofor and Hathaway are fun to watch and there are a bunch of cameos.****
The verdict: Good
Cost: HBOMax monthly fee ($8.99) (Still living off the WW84 month)
Where watched: at home
Consider also watching:
Further sentences:
*So light that despite the fact that I’m still living in quarantine-type restrictions I could watch this without feeling traumatized and did not have feelings of “too soon!”
**This, of course, assumes that there won’t be any global pandemics in the next ten to fifteen years. Which is not an assumption I’m willing to bet on at this point and time.
***The general end-of-the-world feelings, the day drinking, the odd sense of time, the awkward Zoom calls, the abrupt job changes, the sliding into familiar bad habits, kids being stuck at home with their parents, the reevaluating of life choices.
****However, if you’ve seen this, I wish to chat about the ending. Do look me up.
Questions:
- What will you remember most about this time?
- Was this the exact right temperature for a movie about a quarantine released during that same quarantine?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
The movie was shot in only 18 days in London during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the hectic pace of filming, stars didn’t have the time to properly prepare and for some scenes Hathaway’s and Ejiofor’s lines had to be taped to their eyeline.
Other reviews of Locked Down:
- Dana Stevens, Slate
- Alonso Duralde, the Wrap
