High-Rise

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source: High-Rise

I should start by mentioning never having read the book which the film is based. But should also note that I believe having less familiarity with the material made for a far greater experience. In some ways, this film has me still thinking about what took place over the 119 min runtime. So much happens, yet in such a subtle way. I can say with high certainty that one viewing does not do this film justice, and encourage a second (or even third)! A physiologist named Laing has recently moved into a high-rise and begins to discover the buildings politics regarding social status. The general idea being that the higher floor a person resides on, the higher social status they have achieved. Many have claimed this was confusing and difficult to interpret. But I must stress the extensive amount of symbolism which can be attained throughout. I think it best to only offer this brief setup for the film, and encourage readers not to pass up this unique experience. It's one you surely will not regret. Just watch it. ----- 8/10 STARS -------- Review by Searsino -----

Ben Weatley and his writer Amy should be banned for inflicting such absolute crap on the public. Ludicrous acting. Awful script and after sightseers, a field in england and kill list there should be a law for giving these terrible film makes money to make awful movies like this. I walked out. It made the terrible deadpool as good as Citizen Kane. I am a film maker myself but if I ever made a movie as bad as this I would quit and take up looming. People laughed. I wanted to kill myself and then destroy Ben and Amy who should be ashamed at thinking anything they created anything other than complete contempt. Awful. Awful. And in case you did not get it run do not walk from the cinema before you even contemplate seeing it. Wow. Never have I seen something so bad.

Never read the book or heard of the book prior to watching the movie. The surreal plot certainly intrigued me, and the trailer was very flashy. Unfortunately the trailer showed all the cool parts, and what was left was a very shoddy looking movie. Green screening and cgi were rampant throughout, and it stood out like a sore thumb. The slow-mo was overused imho as well. Much of the filmresembled a TV movie, and it really misfired in the delivery of the philosophical elements, because it tried so hard to be ironically comedic, and was drenched in its own pretexts. The score, while good, did not feel appropriate, and often droned. This was a real disappointment because I was looking forward to watching this. Ben Wheatley is a total nostalgia nerd, which resulted in some interesting imagery, but on a substantive level, he utterly failed.

JG Ballard's dystopian science fiction novels have long been regarded as being unfilmable. Ironically it was Steven Spielberg who first made a film of one of his books, the autobiographical Empire of the Sun which was also more conventional. In High Rise the building clad in some kind of neo 1970s decor is really the star as it represents the social strata. A society in decay. The film opens where there has been a total nihilistic breakdown amongst the occupants where we see a man roasting a dog's leg before we jump back three months earlier. Dr Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) is a middle class doctor, almost an every-man who is at ease both going up and down the social classes in the tower block. He is helped by Charlotte Melville (Sienna Miller) a sexy neighbour who helps Laing get to the upper floors where tastes are more refined. Better parties, music, swimming pool and restaurants for example. Richard Wilder (Luke Evans whose get up reminds me a lot of actor Stanley Baker) is a truculent documentary maker who lives near the ground floor with his wife and children amongst the rest of the block's poorer tenants. Wilder is aware and resentful of the inequality that exists in building. He has to put up with electricity outages, lifts not working properly, inferior restaurants, shops, parties. Wilder wants to expose the building's architect Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons) who lives on the top floor and he also happens to be Laing's occasional squash partner. As we head towards hedonism, one-upmanship, sex fuelled violence the narrative structure of the film breaks down. The descent into madness is too rapid as Laing suddenly starts to paint his room and himself. The film becomes disjointed although we see some of the upper floor residents who wish to Balkanise the lower floors and re-organise the place more to their benefit. It is as the novel was just too big and intricate to just chew off and director Ben Wheatley did not have the budget and resources to do it justice. The film ends with the words of Mrs Margaret Thatcher former Prime Minister of Britain who did so much to ramp up the divisions between rich and poor in the 1980s.

The most frustrating thing of all about this film is that it starts out with quite a bit of promise. Visually stimulating: interesting and tantalisingly bizarre story and characters - "where will this rabbit hole lead?" you wonder. Well my wife wanted to go to sleep and I was intrigued enough to keep her up on a Sunday night to watch more. As a result I've just been screamed at, I'm apparently spending the night on the sofa and I have specifically registered with IMDb to warn you away from this bubbling pustule of a film. Frankly I'm lucky to be on the sofa - after that decision I'm fortunate not to be face down in a foot-deep bath. It would be more than I deserve. As I mentioned, after about twenty minutes or so the director seems to give up entirely and simply throw this film into the pinball machine of art-house cliché, and what a score he achieves. In particular; slow motion violence coupled with classical music. I have more than a sneaking suspicion that the director is a big fan of "A Clockwork Orange" and especially the scenes of shockingly base violence coupled with classical music. If your favourite thing in the whole world is the sight of violence in slow motion backed by classical music then this is your lucky day - you are going to be in ecstacy watching this film. Sadly no-one ever seems to have explained to the director that watching violence is like watching *; thrilling for the first ten minutes, boring for the next five minutes, before settling in to a depressing soul-crushing grind for all time thereafter. Every character is eminently unlikeable (whichever "side" you pick, both display shocking cruelty to animals, which for me is a massive red line), the story is exceptionally weak - the premise on which society "breaks down" is utterly pathetic. The whole trick of art- house film is to be able to create surreal metaphors which are cleverly interpreted observations on real life; this film can add itself to the list of wannabe art-house, simply scattering meaningless surreal imagery around with apparently no meaning or significance whatsoever. If you ever find yourself talking to the director and he mentions that he is planning on making another film, please do us all a favour and suggest that he find the nearest 40- storey high-rise block and throw himself off of the top of it.