19/11/2024 - Vincent Lindon imposes his charisma and talent as he occupies the screen alone for the full 77 minutes of Gilles Bourdos’ remake, based on Steven Knight’s Locke

"You’re crazy", "you’ve totally lost it", "you’re out of your mind." It would be an understatement to say that the various people whose telephone calls punctuate Joseph Cross’ nocturnal car journey to Paris don’t share his viewpoint on the situation he’s embarking himself and others into. But our man’s mind is made up and there’s no going back. In spite of the serious doubts which are clearly assailing him, he powers on, like a tightrope walker staring into a huge precipice on a decidedly windy day.

By choosing to adapt English director Steven Knight’s movie, Locke [+see also:
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interview: Christa Théret
film profile], and in Venice’s 2017 Orizzonti section with Endangered Species [+see also:
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trailer
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It goes without saying that such an endeavour couldn’t be carried off without an exceptional actor on board, at the risk of veering off-road. And, following in the footsteps of Tom Hardy, it’s Vincent Lindon (crowned in Cannes 2015 thanks to The Measure of a Man [+see also:
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interview: Stéphane Brizé
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film profile]) who has taken up the challenge, stepping into the shoes of a diehard character who has made a moral decision ("I didn’t behave very well") which sees the whole of his private and professional life brought to the point of implosion.

But what is Locke about, for those who haven’t seen Michel Spinosa’s French flavoured adaptation? We find out very quickly, over the course of numerous phone calls made and received by Joseph Cross in his car, which is speeding towards the capital from the gigantic building site he manages in the provinces, that: "she’s going to give birth and it’s my child". It’s not his partner that he’s talking about - the person he slept with during a work trip the previous year is pretty much a stranger to him ("you hardly know me, I hardly know you"). A fragile woman who’s alone and panicking, given the circumstances, and whom he refuses to leave in the lurch. But by choosing not to return home, where his two children are waiting to watch a football match with him, and to desert his post the day before a record-breaking concrete pour - the failure of which could cost his employer €100m - Joseph is undermining the trust people have in him, not least his wife to whom he confesses everything ("it was the first time, I swear "). He nevertheless tries, all while driving, to take responsibility for his actions, through to the bitter end, firstly by delegating his work to an assistant who’s terrified by this sudden responsibility, talking them through it step by step, and, secondly and most importantly, by explaining himself, because in reality there’s far more secret, more intimate and more psychoanalytical reasoning at play here…

With its brilliantly sustained breathless pace, Cross Away unfolds through a series of mini-crises which are fuelled by telephone conversations and which the protagonist must face and resolve alone. Both a metaphor for an interconnected but lonely modern world and the tremors which can suddenly shake any ordinary soul to their core, the film successfully injects truth and humanity into the constraints of this style exercise, an achievement which owes much to Vincent Lindon whose charisma and acting maturity were clearly essential to such a gargantuan and sensitive role.

Cross Away has been produced by Curiosa Films in co-production with UGC, Studio Exception and JD Prod. Newen Connect handles international sales.

(Translated from French)