A kindly nurse tries to find the truth behind a woman’s accident in a new Netflix thriller. Here’s our Locked In review.
Since the streaming revolution began, much has been made of TV becoming more cinematic. Less so, probably, of cinema becoming more like TV. Though the times have made distinctions between TV movies and movie-movies a thing of the past, Netflix in particular seems to have carved out a niche creating films that, to all intents and purposes, feel like a straight-to-TV movie.
The latest inheritor of that tradition, Locked In has the look and feel of a modern BBC drama. The deliberately twisty plot leaves ample room for flashbacks, characters end sentences on ominous cliffhangers like “that’s why you blame yourself for what happened”, and most of the action takes place in a neatly shot British stately home. The only difference is the runtime – one 96-minute feature with the appearance of a three-hour miniseries.
With expectations appropriately set, Locked In provides the fodder for a perfectly cosy evening in front of the telly. Some parts feel rushed. Others feel messy – as if the story really would have benefitted from an extra hour or so to get its entertainingly soapy ducks in a row. But the slightly conventional script throws twists thick and fast enough that the speedy runtime passes at a comfortable pace even if it never reaches the breezy heights it seems to be aiming for.
Famke Janssen plays former Hollywood star Katherine – and she’s not been having a great day. After suffering a serious head trauma, she’s been left with the ‘locked in’ syndrome of the title. Her brain function might be intact, but her body’s so damaged she has no way of communicating even if it is. That won’t put Anna Friel’s Nurse Mackensie off, though. Whip-smart, friendly, and with the interrogative skills and curiosity of Hercule Poirot, she’ll go far beyond her job description to uncover the web of lies, infidelity and (possibly) murder that got Katherine into her care.
From that set-up, though, the film hops back 13 years and attention largely shifts onto Rose Williams’ Lina. The daughter of Katherine’s childhood friend, she first becomes the actor’s adopted daughter before, following her marriage to Katherine’s stepson Jamie (Finn Cole), becoming her daughter-in-law.
Cue a decade or so of abject misery for Lina. Jamie – who Katherine believes is faking regular seizures to ruin her social life – is totally reliant on his wife for his care. He’s also sarcastic, demanding and a bit of a nightmare to be around. Thank goodness for the family’s kindly GP, the effortlessly charming Alex Hassell, who’s been very generous with his painkiller prescriptions and seems to be the only person Lina meets who isn’t consistently horrible to her.
It comes as no surprise at all that Lina and Doctor Lawrence start having an affair. Though the frankly massive house must have a few spare bedrooms knocking about, their activities usually take place in barns, attic spaces and what appears to be some kind of abandoned greenhouse. If nothing else, it’s nice to see a bit of set variety, even if it does rather take away from Lina’s feeling of claustrophobia at being stuck in the same building for 13 years.
The cast, for the most part, do a fine job elevating the predictable plot points. Hassell in particular is carving out a fine career for himself as a charismatically earnest pair of hands, and while Janssen spends most of her flashbacks looking a bit over-surprised, it’s nothing that another murder accusation or two can’t solve.
Locked In might not be the most memorable original film Netflix has pumped out recently. It’s also far from the worst. For its target audience, there’s little that a decent TV drama wouldn’t have offered over a slightly longer runtime – but for a brain-off, British, Thursday night thriller, director Nour Wazzi’s film ticks all the cosiest boxes.
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