"High Rise" has a lot of great things going for it at face value: Tom Hiddleston stars, Ben Wheatley directing, classic 1970s films filled with great music and sex based on the novel by J.G. Ballard; but when you delve deeper into this movie, it seems to only care about Ballard's original thematic message and in a way insults our intelligence. It keeps battering us with the idea of how a capitalist society will only bring ruin and destruction when the bottom rises up. I mean, now is good a time as ever to release this film, and its significance will be greatly appreciated in later decades to come as a case study of the current American lifestyle, but when you trump thematics over story, you begin to lose your suspension of belief and start looking at the picture for what is really is.
Based on J.G. Ballard’s novel of the same name, and brought to life in harrowing and stylish detail by visionary director Ben Wheatley,"High Rise" centers on Dr. Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston), a newcomer to a luxury high-rise building where the inhabitants are stratified by social class. Opening on trash bags piled high, with men roasting a dog over a spit fueled by detritus, and dead bodies lurking in the background, Wheatley rewinds three months to a period of relative peace to chart the descent into anarchy and violence. Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, and Elisabeth Moss co-star as residents of the dystopian complex, while Jeremy Irons reigns above it all as its chief architect and penthouse resident.
The film is expertly crafted, from the outrageous production design to the gorgeous, 70s feel of the cinematography. Everything that Wheatley and his crew have done in this film fully lead me to believe I was in the 70s. Where this film just plucks me out of the experience is the very simple notion of everyone just being able to leave the high rise whenever they wanted. When all of the murder, rape, and destruction of the place you live in is happening everyday, wouldn't you just leave? Any sensible human would. Granted, the theme of the film calls us Americans out when we threaten to leave America when the people elect a president we don't like, but yet we stay. Which is hunky dory, I'm all for that and it's smart in that regard. But a high rise isn't a nation: we can pack up and leave when we want to.
Listen, if you enjoy Tom Hiddleston and Ben Wheatley, then this is surely a movie for you. If you enjoy films that batter a political ideology down your throat unmercifully--then this is a movie for you. For everyone else who wants a film with a good story, you may or may not find it here. It's not a horrible film, it's just too politically on the nose and would rather tell us what "High Rise" is really about rather than show it. To me, that kind of insults my intelligence. If we want to find the socio-political messages in the film, just let us. That to us is entertaining.
