Psycho's Movie Reviews #317: High Rise (2015)

High-Rise is a 2015 British dystopian film directed by Ben Wheatley from a screenplay by Amy Jump, based on the 1975 novel of the same name by British writer J. G. Ballard. The film stars Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, and Elisabeth Moss. It was produced by Jeremy Thomas through his production company Recorded Picture Company.

The film is set in a luxury tower block during the 1970s. Featuring a wealth of modern conveniences, the building allows its residents to become gradually uninterested in the outside world. The infrastructure begins to fail and tensions between residents become apparent, and the building soon descends into chaos.

In September 2015, the film received its world première at the Toronto International Film Festival and its European première at the 63rd San Sebastián Film Festival. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 18 March 2016 by StudioCanal. Though a modest critical success, the film's theatrical box office failed to meet its production costs. In 2017 it was nominated for the Empire Award for Best British Film.

Plot

The film opens with Dr. Robert Laing living in a ravaged high-rise tower block, killing a dog and spit-roasting its leg.

Three months earlier, the 40-story tower on the outskirts of London, built by esteemed architect Anthony Royal, is the epitome of chic, modern living. Wealthy residents live on the top floors, and poorer residents live below. With amenities including a pool, gym, spa, supermarket, and primary school, the occupants have little reason to leave the building beyond working hours and become increasingly isolated from the outside world.

Laing, who moves onto the 25th floor after his sister dies, begins a sexual relationship with single mother Charlotte Melville and becomes a fatherly figure to her son, Toby. Laing also befriends documentary filmmaker Richard Wilder and his pregnant wife Helen, who live in a low-level apartment with their children.

While Laing leads a physiology class in examining a severed head, a student named Munrow faints and is given a precautionary brain scan. The next day, Laing is taken to the 40th-story penthouse to meet Royal, who invites him to a party thrown by his snobby wife, Ann.

The gathering turns out to be an 18th-century costume party where Laing's everyday suit is ridiculed by Ann and other guests, including Munrow, who also lives in the building. Humiliated, Laing is thrown out of the party and becomes trapped in an elevator during a power outage. Such outages are becoming common, along with water being shut off and garbage chutes becoming blocked, to the annoyance of residents. Royal tells Laing these are simply growing pains of a new building.

Munrow's brain scans come back clean, but a vengeful Laing leads him to believe he has a brain tumor. Another power outage ignites a night of decadent partying throughout the high-rise, and a drunk Munrow commits suicide by jumping off the 39th floor. Suspicious that no police arrive to investigate, Wilder becomes intent on exposing the injustices within the high-rise.

Law and order in the building disintegrate as violence and debauchery become commonplace, garbage piles up, food becomes scarce, and class warfare erupts between floors. Laing shows signs of mental disturbance, savagely beating a man, barricading himself in his apartment, and having sex with Helen.

Wilder, having been beaten by upper-floor residents, decides to kill Royal, believing him responsible for the chaos. It is implied that Royal has bribed authorities to ignore the disorder. Acquiring a gun from the Royal's former housekeeper, Wilder learns that Toby is Royal's illegitimate child. Breaking into Charlotte's apartment, Wilder tortures and rapes her for information on Royal. A television newsreader named Cosgrove, the only upper-floor resident who still leaves for work, is killed by a gang of lower-floor residents.

Some upper-floor residents butcher Ann's horse for meat and ask Laing to lobotomize Wilder as a dangerous agitator. After conducting a psychiatric examination, Laing refuses, stating that Wilder is "possibly the sanest man in the building". Laing is nearly thrown off the tower, but Royal intervenes. He surmises to Laing that the failure of the high-rise may actually be a kind of success, a "crucible for change" that could lead residents to escape to a new life. Helen gives birth to her overdue baby. Wilder makes his way to the penthouse, shoots Royal dead, and dies at the hands of Royal's women, as Toby looks on through his kaleidoscope.

The film ends as it began in the ravaged high-rise. Violence has abated somewhat since many residents are dead or have fled. Laing appears to have gone insane, speaking about himself and to others in the third person. He lies down with Charlotte, reflecting that what has happened will eventually occur in the second tower of the development. The film concludes with Toby listening to a radio broadcast of Margaret Thatcher declaring that "where there is state capitalism there can never be political freedom."

{Total side note; Mirrors are one of the many things I hate, let alone those infinite mirror elevators. They are just so trippy to be in. Tom looks terrifying in this light - he looks like the villain!}

Production

Development

British producer Jeremy Thomas had wanted to make a film adaptation of J.G. Ballard's High-Rise since the 1970s. He tried to make it in the late 1970s with Nicolas Roeg directing from a script by Paul Mayersberg. In the 2000s, Thomas began developing the project with screenwriter Richard Stanley and director Vincenzo Natali, with the film intended as a loose adaptation of the novel.

In 2013, Wheatley started looking into who held the rights to the book, which led him to Thomas. Wheatley has remarked: “The book makes as much sense now as it did then. It was written in the '70s, projecting itself into a near future, but we live in that future now. We're almost in a new version of the '70s.”

Screenwriter Amy Jump, who is also Wheatley's wife, adapted the book.

Hiddleston's involvement in the project was announced in February 2014 after he was cast in the role of Dr. Robert Laing. Hiddleston had previously worked with Thomas on Jim Jarmusch's 2013 film Only Lovers Left Alive. The involvement of Luke Evans and Elisabeth Moss was announced that June.

Clint Mansell composed the soundtrack for the film.

International sales were handled by HanWay Films, and key financiers included the British Film Institute and FilmFour.

Filming

Principal photography began in July 2014 in Belfast, primarily in the seaside resort town of Bangor, County Down.

On 3 July 2014, Wheatley tweeted pictures of the set. On 6 August 2014, Hiddleston tweeted a photograph of himself from the set seen in character as Laing, together with Wheatley, Evans and director of photography Laurie Rose.

Elisabeth Moss later remarked on Wheatley and the shoot: "I don't know anyone who makes movies like he does... (it was) like if you gave him a bigger crew, a little bit more money, costumes and hair and makeup, all of that stuff that maybe he hasn't had before. It was so fun, he is just a fucking genius and he's so funny."

Release/Reception/Box Office

Prior to production on the film, it was announced that StudioCanal and The Jokers would be distributing the film in the United Kingdom and France, respectively. In August 2015, it was announced that Soda Pictures would distribute the film in Canada. The film had its world première at the Toronto International Film Festival on 13 September 2015. It had its international premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival on 21 September 2015. The film went onto screen at the London Film Festival on 9 October 2015, and the Torino Film Festival on 22 November 2015. Shortly after, it was announced Magnet Releasing had acquired the US distribution rights to the film. The film was released on 18 March 2016 in the United Kingdom. The film was released in the United States on 28 April 2016, with a day and date video on demand and theatrical limited release on 13 May 2016.

The film failed to recoup its production costs.

Tim Robey of The Telegraph awarded High-Rise 4 out of 5 stars, praising the brutality and dark comedy. IGN awarded it a score of 7.0 out of 10, saying "Enjoyably dark and disturbing adaptation of one of J.G. Ballard's best." Kate Wilson of Varsity gave the film a 5-star review, calling it a "masterpiece." In a review for Architects Journal, Laura Mark was impressed by the "fantastic" visuals but noted that it lacked plot. Mark also stated that the dystopia portrayed reflected current concerns regarding gentrification and division.

On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 60% based on 215 reviews, with an average rating of 6.26/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "High-Rise may not quite live up to its classic source material, but it still offers an energetic, well-acted, and thought-provoking take on its timely socioeconomic themes." On Metacritic the film has a score of 65 out of 100 based on reviews from 36 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".

Budget £6.1million

Box office $4.1million

{What I wouldn't give to be one of those women}

My Review

{*Giggles crazily* IT'S A TOM FILM!!!!}

High-Rise is the latest film adaption of a J.G. Ballard novel. The previously most prominent one was David Cronenberg's controversial Crash (1996). Similar to that one, High-Rise is a pretty faithful adaption of the material. Having read both of those books, I felt that High-Rise was definitely the superior of the two. It was a perfect example of the peculiar kind of sci-fi Ballard is known for, i.e. it's nihilistic, critical of society and the set-up is very familiar but with some slight changes, which gives off the feeling that the events are set five minutes in the future. This film adaption is a little different to this in that the stylistic decision has been made that the world in which events take place would resemble the one envisaged by Ballard back in 1975 when he wrote the novel, i.e. it's a view of the future mid-70's style in all its beige and concrete glory. The upshot of this is that the look is of the retro-future variety and this may be the single best thing about the film overall. The photography and set-design are both excellent, while the various montages and dream-like segments are all very well executed. To top this off is a very well chosen soundtrack, which often has a sound which fits the sterile surroundings very well, as well as two very different and interesting versions of the ABBA song S.O.S., {Which was a surprise to hear because that's one of my favourite ABBA songs}, a song which also came out the same year this novel was released.

The story in a nutshell has a doctor move into a modern high-rise building which has been fitted with all mod cons, meaning that life can be lived within its confines without the need to leave the building. The skyscraper has an in-built social order, where the higher your apartment is, the higher you are in the caste system. This leads to resentment from the people in the lower floors who feel they are getting a bad deal out of the system. This leads to a violent class war, where the residents are reduced to savagery in an alarmingly short space of time.

The high-rise itself serves as a microcosm of human capitalist society as a whole. The events and character actions that occur are of course highly exaggerated and severe, even if they do touch upon definite truths. But this is a very blackly satirical story and so realism is not a priority here. To this end the events are often wilfully surreal and absurd. This approach does mean, however, that this is not always a fully engaging experience, with many vignettes going off at tangents and the abundant humour sometimes meaning it is hard to take things altogether seriously some of the time. It's a quite fragmented film overall, with a not entirely linear story-line and the full-on nature of the visual presentation – while extremely good – can sometimes overcome the content. Still, I found a lot to like in this one and admired the boldness of approach. Director Ben Wheatley has to be given appropriate credit for bringing this to the screen in such an uncompromising manner, he is certainly putting together one of the most interesting bodies of work in cinema right now. Ultimately, High-Rise is certainly a film that will understandably be very divisive, but I thought, on the whole, it was a very good adaption of an excellent subversive novel.

It's very geometric in it's visuals and set design. The whole story is weird, and you have to pay full attention to follow it, but that's not a bad thing (I guess).

This is a rather dark dystopian drama. Unlike most such films it isn't set in the future but in the mid '70s, the time the book it is based on was written. It nicely captures that era while not feeling dated. Tom Hiddleston does a fine job as Laing and Jeremy Irons impresses as the building's architect, who lives in the penthouse and imagines that he has built a vertical Utopia where problems are just a case of 'settling in'. Also notable are Sienna Miller, who plays the woman in the apartment above Laing's; Luke Evans as the bolshie Wilder and Peter Ferdinando, who plays the brutish Cosgrove. Once things start to go wrong there is a near constant sense of danger and there are moments of fairly shocking violence, some of a sexual nature. As is often the case when societies reach an end there is also a decadence among those at the top. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of the genre; just expect some distinctly uncomfortable moments. 8.7/10 {Most of these points just go for Tom's presence, thought I'd be clear}

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{I legit choked on my own saliva on this scene... I worry about myself too}