Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor Find New Forms of Comedy That Hit Close to Home in HBO Max’s LOCKED DOWN

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede The new HBO Max original feature film LOCKED DOWN, starring Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, gets to speak a brand new comedic language. Consider what it was like when telephones were invented, or television, or the earliest home computers. Fresh avenues of comedy opened up, because suddenly you could make fun of telephones, or television, or home computers, and everyone would be in on the joke. Similarly, LOCKED DOWN – which debuts Thursday only on Crave – lives up to its title, as it comedically investigates just what people can be driven to while locked down during the pandemic. In this case, the list includes everything from Zoom-call-framing frustration, to plotting to steal a valuable diamond from Harrods in London, England. LOCKED DOWN zeroes in on many of the things that people wouldn’t necessarily have identified with 10 months ago, but are hilarious now. Thus, a new comedic language is born. “I never thought about it like that, because I think I’m much more of a classicist about it,” said Hathaway in a virtual interview with The Lede. “I think comedy is comedy, and it’s using the technology in a comedic way, more so than breaking new comedy ground. I think the thing that makes the Zoom stuff funny is the timing. But that’s a cool beat on it – I just hadn’t thought of it that way.” Ejiofor added, “It’s interesting to do something when you know people all over the world will immediately understand all the nuances of what you’re talking about. It’s like having everybody in on ‘inside baseball.’ It’s a strange concept, but I think it’s very new, and pretty extraordinary.” In LOCKED DOWN, Linda (Hathaway) and Paxton (Ejiofor) are enduring lockdown together, even though Linda recently informed Paxton that she wants to end their romantic relationship. As tensions – big and small – mount for both parties, an opportunity to change their lives forever presents itself. But it’s far from legal. Can they work as a team to pull it off? Do they have the guts to do it? And through all these mixed emotions, are they actually getting closer again? “You’re very smart to point that out, that we are the first sort of post-pandemic film – like, how humans communicate has changed,” director Doug Liman said. “We didn’t make a big deal of it, but it’s the new reality, and I had the opportunity to be the first film out of the gate set in this new reality. Because LOCKED DOWN is not some old script that was dusted off. We started writing the script in July. This story is very much of this moment. I feel sorry for some film that was made a year ago, where people are just having regular old-fashioned phone calls, because that’s just not relevant any more.” With appearances by Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Boynton, Dulé Hill, Jazmyn Simon, and Ben Stiller (alongside his real-life son Quinn in a very funny scene), LOCKED DOWN has a deep cast. But Liman had special praise for OSCAR® winner Hathaway, and OSCAR nominee Ojiofor, referring to them as “heroes – and I say heroic because this was not an easy movie to make during a pandemic, and they’re the faces on screen.” Both Hathaway and Ejiofor deftly portray characters who spend much of LOCKED DOWN on the verge of exploding, or imploding, or both. That has to be fun to play. “Yes – when the stakes are high enough that you can just fully press down on the gas pedal, it just feels wonderful, and it felt like the stakes for everyone were very high in this past year,” Hathaway said. “I mean, I know I was falling apart at the seams, especially in the beginning, while I was kind of adjusting to this new reality. So this felt very truthful. I was screaming into a pillow. I was just thrashing about in my garden, or reciting poetry outside. I was doing things that made me seem a little unhinged. But actually, that was just me coping. So yeah, that is fun.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv