Today’s quick review: High-Rise. Dr. Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) moves into a new high-rise apartment complex. There he makes friends with Wilder (Luke Evans), a loutish filmmaker; has a fling with Charlotte (Sienna Miller), a social climber; and even meets Mr. Royal (Jeremy Irons), the building’s architect. But tensions between the upper- and lower-class residents soon erupt into violence, sending the high-rise spiraling into anarchy.
High-Rise is a dark drama and social satire with traces of black comedy. High-Rise chronicles the descent into madness of an upscale British apartment building where the wealthy and the working class live together. The movie attempts to be an artistic, biting look at social stratification and humanity at its basest. However, the movie’s disjointed storytelling and over-reliance on shock value drown out whatever points it’s trying to make.
High-Rise makes for a disorienting watch. The film’s busy directorial style, dreamlike montages, and tendency to gloss over key plot developments all contribute to a story that comes across in bits and pieces, a mosaic of fleeting impressions rather than a tight, cohesive narrative. High-Rise has the trappings of an artistic drama, including a skilled cast and an eye for detail, but it lacks the hook to drag the viewer through its sex and violence.
At the core of the story is a leap that many viewers will not be able to take. The entire movie hinges on the hypothesis that, left to their own devices, people will resort to the crudest sort of violence and tribalism. This is a fine hypothesis for a drama to explore, but High-Rise does almost nothing to set it up. The situation escalates rapidly from simmering tension to full-scale rioting, with little justification and no steps in between.
The result is an uncomfortable watch that requires a peculiar form of suspension of disbelief to get the most out of. A viewer who’s willing to push through the graphic content, accept the nigh-instantaneous onset of savagery, and read meaning into the struggles of the occupants of the nameless high-rise will get plenty out of the film. Most viewers will find High-Rise to be either too dark, too incredible, or too obtuse to properly enjoy.
For a more focused, impactful taste of anarchy, try Fight Club. For a lighter account of the debauchery of the rich, try The Wolf of Wall Street. For a science fiction allegory for economic stratification, try In Time or Elysium. For a darker, more personal, and more gripping tale of insanity, try The Machinist. For a psychedelic British black comedy, try Moonwalkers.
5.6 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 5.5 for lofty ambitions and decent skill, hurt badly by muddled execution and an unmotivated story.