The Fall of High-Rise
by Lulubell
Directed by: Ben Wheatley
Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Ironss, Luke Evans, Sienna Miller, Elizabeth Moss
Trailer Here
Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Ironss, Luke Evans, Sienna Miller, Elizabeth Moss
Trailer Here
I have to admit this upfront. I didn’t understand anything in High-Rise. Even now, days later, I still don’t see the point. There is an inherent promise of greatness in every dystopian/apocalyptic/classist tale, mostly because those kinds of stories have a knack of having great multi-dimensional characters. The idea of world ending paradigm brings out the true character of any person, making it an interesting thing to watch. High-Rise tries to create a deeply stylized commentary of a dystopian scenario within a purely classist environment. But it failed to rise to the occasion.
We are introduced to Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston — waste of talent number one); a physiologist who moves into a monolithic apartment building in what seems to be a modernized version of the 1970s. Everything is gray, sleek and straight. The building is a world unto itself. (Think of the mega blocks in 2012’s Dredd.) The higher up in the building a person lives the higher the social/economic status.
The building is filled with over enthused socialites who are only concerned with throwing cocktail parties and spreading gossip. Not the best selection of human beings to say the least. Laing understandably feels awkward and doesn’t quite fit in. He meets Mr. Royal (Jeremy Irons — wasted talent number two), the architect of the building and a bit of a recluse, who lives in the top floor penthouse. He’s out of touch with everything and everyone around him, including his wife with whom he has a toxic relationship. Neither does he care for the fact that the building is having technical problems. It appears that he has some knowledge of foul play afoot, but chooses to live on ignoring it.
Throughout this Laing tries to befriend the other tenants to very little avail. His bohemian neighbor Charlotte (Sienna Miller — waste of talent number three) beds him and leaves him. A documentarian, Wilder (Luke Evans — wasted talent number four), and his pregnant wife Helen (Elizabeth Moss — you get the pattern) live below Laing and seem determined to fit in with the upper neighbors as well.
At one point, Laing is invited to a party at Mr. Royal's penthouse and is grossly...underdressed? (He's the best looking of the bunch in my opinion).
We are introduced to Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston — waste of talent number one); a physiologist who moves into a monolithic apartment building in what seems to be a modernized version of the 1970s. Everything is gray, sleek and straight. The building is a world unto itself. (Think of the mega blocks in 2012’s Dredd.) The higher up in the building a person lives the higher the social/economic status.
The building is filled with over enthused socialites who are only concerned with throwing cocktail parties and spreading gossip. Not the best selection of human beings to say the least. Laing understandably feels awkward and doesn’t quite fit in. He meets Mr. Royal (Jeremy Irons — wasted talent number two), the architect of the building and a bit of a recluse, who lives in the top floor penthouse. He’s out of touch with everything and everyone around him, including his wife with whom he has a toxic relationship. Neither does he care for the fact that the building is having technical problems. It appears that he has some knowledge of foul play afoot, but chooses to live on ignoring it.
Throughout this Laing tries to befriend the other tenants to very little avail. His bohemian neighbor Charlotte (Sienna Miller — waste of talent number three) beds him and leaves him. A documentarian, Wilder (Luke Evans — wasted talent number four), and his pregnant wife Helen (Elizabeth Moss — you get the pattern) live below Laing and seem determined to fit in with the upper neighbors as well.
At one point, Laing is invited to a party at Mr. Royal's penthouse and is grossly...underdressed? (He's the best looking of the bunch in my opinion).
It’s a mixture of all types of horrible people in the building, all trying to outdo one another in superficiality. Stuck in the middle is Laing who can’t decide which way to go. Suddenly that’s not that much of a problem since the electricity goes out in the entire building and there are more pressing matters to attend to, though all still fairly shallow.
I’m not exactly sure what point the film was trying to convey. Is it that classism is bad? People are all horrible no matter what social strata they belong to? Building management is just shit? Who knows. I surely didn’t understand it.
It’s unfortunate that so much great talent was utterly wasted on a story that was never fully developed. None of the characters had any real development and even their foibles were hardly interesting enough to merit two-hours worth attention. As the film progress, there was an urge feeling that nothing would be better than for this film to just end.
Perhaps there is some sort of metaphorical message trying to reach the surface — it got lost amid the constant orgies, pointless party scenes and the disturbing breakdown of society. The slow decay of the building from top to bottom amounts to nothing because there was no solid focus to the plot.
I blame the trailer for the mislead. It gave the sense that we would be seeing a vertical expanded version of the very underappreciated and underrated 2013 film Snowpiercer. Now that is a film that takes the enclosed space and creates a controlled chaos, highlighting each character’s evolution from structured slavery (in a moving train no less) to enlightenment of one’s own part in the downfall of mankind. It is a brilliant film, one that I reviewed last year (read it here) and it says so much about how we, as individuals, either learn to evolve or return to more animalistic ways.
Rating:
Lets put it this way. If Snowpiercer is crème brûlée then High-Rise is vomit-flavored jello.