In the theatre, the basics for setting up a play are one setting and a good cast (plus a good composer for a musical). For cinema, there are a lot more locations and effects that go into making a movie, as we can see with all the superhero flicks and costume dramas going around Hollywood.
But once in a while, a filmmaker and actor will challenge themselves with limiting their characters to a minimum and/or having only one setting.
This month, Steven Knight’s “Locke” is in limited release and is the most recent example of this tactic by having lead actor Tom Hardy confined to his car the entire film.
For those thinking of staying indoors this weekend but still looking for similar one-person tales at home, there are quite a few.
Big successes last year obviously were Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” and J.C. Chandor’s “All is Lost,” the first centering primarily around Sandra Bullock and the latter featuring only Robert Redford. Both those films are intimate, yet heart-racing tales of survival with brilliant performances, as are:
Duncan Jones’ subtle “Moon” with Sam Rockwell as a man working all alone on the lunar surface.
Will Smith was the last person left alive on Earth in the modestly popular “I am Legend” by Francis Lawrence.
Robert Zemeckis’ “Cast Away” was a big hit at its time of release and was about an island-desolated Tom Hanks trying to find humanity again.
Ryan Reynolds was stuck inside a buried coffin with only a lighter and a half-charged phone in Rodrigo Cortés’ anxiety-ridden “Buried.”
Danny Boyle and James Franco collaborated to adapt Aron Ralston’s “127 Hours,” a brutal tale of Ralston being physically stuck in a southeastern Utah slot canyon.
Robert Altman directed a whole movie, “Secret Honor,” inside Richard Nixon’s office, where Philip Baker Hall gave a fictionalized stream-of-conscious recording by the President.
Adding one more character to an intimate or claustrophobic setting also can be interesting, such as Chris Kentis’ “Open Water,” a chilling pseudo-documentary with a couple (played by unknown actors Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis) left behind during a scuba dive.
Or seemingly forgotten Gus van Sant’s “Gerry” starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as friends stuck in the desert without any food or water.
Most famously and successfully of the duo leads on screen would be “Sleuth,” a battle of wits between Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier as two men involved with the same woman (later remade with Caine and Jude Law in 2007); and Louis Malle’s “My Dinner with Andre” starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn as “themselves” eating dinner and conversing in a quiet restaurant.
For those looking for less action and more dialogue, or more action with less dialogue, there might be something here for all.
mbianco@durangoherald.com. Megan Bianco is a movie reviewer and also contributes other entertainment related features and articles.
