Locked In

Former actress and Hollywood star Katherine wakes from a coma, but is unable to communicate, helped by Nurse Nicky Mackenzie, who tries to unlock the causes of her injury, only her daughter in law seems to have the answers.

Once again, it's curse of number one on Netflix, a movie that on paper should have been very good, but ultimately disappoints.

It's like one of those plush, but dodgy 1980's afternoon movies, if only Katherine had been given a Range Rover, Golden retrievers, a perm, spritz of Fidji, and a box of Terry's All Gold.

A tale of hidden passions, vengeance, loathing and dark secrets, it's hard to care for a single one of them, they're all awful people.

I didn't care for the storyline, or the over the top music, it all jars, it's so clunky.

Famke Janssen does a good job as Katherine, she plays the Lady or The Manor very well, but ultimately she is wasted, she's better than this.

What I want to know, why is this number one, who's actually watching this and enjoying it?

Poor, 5/10.

Nurse Nicky Mackenzie (Anna Friel) gets a new patient, Katherine (Famke Janssen) who is unable to communicate due to her injuries. She starts talking to Katherine's visitor Lina (Rose Williams). 13 years earlier after the death of Lina's mother, Katherine had become her guardian. At the time, Katherine was a rich and famous Hollywood actress. Her son Jamie suffers from periodic seizures. 3 years earlier, Lina is marrying Jamie (Finn Cole). Dr. Robert Lawrence (Alex Hassell) is treating Jamie.

This feels more like an old timey soapy romance melodrama mystery. I like all these actors. I am slightly intrigued with their characters. I would change one thing for sure. Nicky Mackenzie should be a cop investigating Katherine's incident. As a nurse, she adds no tension to the story. As a cop, she could uncover some sort of foul play and the audience would be more invested in the mystery.

I had my hopes up when I saw this film was on the number one spot at my coutrys Netflix chart this week. I really like Famke Jansen, but why did she have to be apart of this production? With her charisma there should be better roles for her. She is too talented for this type of conveyer belt productions. The film in itself looks good, but it feels more like a long music video. The idea for the story is great, but it doesn't unfortunately take off. Boring and predictable story. Even the genre of Locked In should mystery, by it is impossible to find that. Maybe the mystery is why was this even done in first place.

In this movie Lina is adopted by Kathrine - her dead mother's best friend - to live in a mansion that represents all the luxury and glamour Kathrine is used to but recently lost, as upon her husband's death everything was inherited by Jamie - Kathrine's young stepson.

Will this strange family dynamic prevail or will it all turn into a tragedy?

The movie has good vibes but the story was not strong enough and felt like the characters tension wasn't played out well. It was lacking chemistry and often felt like they all had different ideas about how they should portray the characters.

It was anticlimatic, no big revelations or twists, everything was predictable and well, boring.

It felt like they tried too hard to make it scary or thrilling but failed at the attempt even though they had all these amazing scenery but ultimately failed to give it cinematic justice.

Locked In is generically a modern Gothic story. British, manor, orphans, illness, love affairs, duplicitous characters, plots within plots, etc. All of that, the movie does well.

Do we need another Gothic mystery of orphaned child becoming entwined with a decaying family and its manor? Probably not. Do the actors move past the 2 dimensional nature of their characters? Decidedly no. Does the story line bring anything new or ingenious to the story? A resounding no.

Part of the issue I see is that the main character is the young orphaned girl and her movement into this family and the machinations of the plot. She's not that interesting of a character. And the narrow focus that the film takes toward her shuts out the other characters from being able to provide much richness to the story.

This harkens to the great movie and story of Rebbeca in many ways. But that film allowed other characters room to play, and the uncertainty of motivations and conniving increased the sense of tension and dread. As a copy or comparison of that, this films decidedly missed the mark. As a display of a Gothic story, it does all right.