Robert Laing is a doctor of physiology who has just moved into his new apartment on the 25th floor of a high-rise block. “So, how is the high life?” Laing is asked by a work colleague. “Prone to bouts of mania, narcissism and power failure” he replies…
This film is based on the 1975 novel High-Rise by J.G. Ballard. Film producer Jeremy Thomas bought the movie rights almost immediately and had originally intended that Nicholas Roeg direct the film. However it is forty years later that the project finally bears fruit under the direction of Ben Wheatley.
Set in 1975, the action unfolds in a high-rise apartment block somewhere in England. This is a visionary future where the high-rise is the dwelling of choice. The architect of this brave new concrete monolith of a world is Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons). He lives in the penthouse on the top floor with his materially insatiable wife, Ann (Keeley Hawes). She dresses as Little Bo Peep and rides her horse through the roof garden. The new ‘normal’ here is cocktail parties, fancy dress and a level of excess reminiscent of the French aristocracy of the 1780s. The higher the floor you live on in this forty-storey distorted microcosm of society, the higher your social standing. The occupants of the higher floors literally look down on those below and treat them as lower class citizens.
The high-rise boasts a range of luxury amenities such as a swimming pool, gym and supermarket so that you would never need to venture outside unless you had to. The building sustains its own power and water utilities which are not always allocated fairly. A claustrophobic, institutionalised world is created which fuels an unhealthy dependence on the high-rise.
Although a dysfunctional society, it does at least start as an ordered one. However, the order soon descends into chaos. Laing (Tom Hiddleston) is the outsider who initially finds this new world bemusing and permissive. He quickly settles in but is ultimately consumed by the disturbing events that threaten to destroy both the high-rise and its occupants.
The film is moderately intriguing during the brief period of character introduction, but the whole thing soon falls apart. As the occupants become increasingly dissatisfied with their lot, the film quickly degenerates into a hedonistic nightmare. We are presented with scene after scene of anarchy, torture, beatings, sexual violence and drink and drug-fuelled orgies. There is no plot development here. It is just one gratuitous sequence after another, served up as confectionary for the voyeur. Some have praised this film as a darkly, hilarious black comedy. It is certainly funny if you think that persuading some of the finest acting talent in Britain to behave like children in Lord of The Flies meets a Haribo ad. But sorry folks, I didn’t find it funny at all.
The film has some technical merit. The production design is coherent and the music score is successful in conveying the modernist style of the film and the period. The script is actually quite good in parts, displaying an economy with words reminiscent of Ballard’s novel. Visually the film is striking and the director shows confidence and flair. Tom Hiddleston is convincing as Dr. Laing, a central character always one step emotionally removed from the world around him. However, this is a misguided project. Apart from providing employment for a number of people for a period of time, this is a lamentable use of National Lottery funding.
I’m sure that Nicholas Roeg or Stanley Kubrick would have brought more restraint and depth to this project in the seventies, but this is a poor adaptation of Ballard’s hypnotic prose. It is Film4-friendly fare of the worst kind, that desperately tries to shock the audience while wearing the mask of art house style and bravado. Fast forward eighteen months and this will be aired on Channel 4 at 10pm. That would be the best way to see this film, if you must. It won’t cost you anything, there’ll be plenty of distracting adverts and you can always switch to the +1 Channel and watch the second half of Eight Out of Cats Does Countdown.
This is a deeply unpleasant piece of work that for the last half hour I was begging to end. It is a waste of talent, a waste of money and a waste of time.
Author – Simon, Norwich store
