Review of High-Rise (2015) by Jay C — 05 May 2016

HIGH-RISE is an indelible experience, but not necessarily one that is without serious flaws. Fundamentally, the movie strikes an interesting tone as it tells its parable of class unease and conflict; there's an ambiguous quality to the movie's characters and its narrative, which often makes it hard to engage with on an emotional level, and the overriding feeling I got while watching was that this is a deeply weird movie, albeit one that is never not interesting.

It's peppered with odd and enigmatic choices throughout, indulging in fairly broad characterizations and situations in the service of what ultimately comes across as a very strong and pointed satire.

Though the movie had elements of science fiction and horror, the whole thing is pitched at a level just slightly beyond heightened and which borders dangerously on being overtly silly. It's a well made film from a technical perspective, and one that really evokes some of the edgier cinema of the late 1960s and 1970s.

It's also edited well, and features a retro stylishness to the production design which is coupled with an occasionally severe aesthetic, and that contrast works well to underscore the movie's thematic concerns.

Tom Hiddleston's very good, but the character is pretty much a blank slate who exists mostly to be befuddled by what transpires around him, while Jeremy Irons delivers a legitimately nuanced performance that is probably better than the character on the page deserved.

Ultimately, the movie is incredibly watchable (and, at times, fascinating), but its perverse strangeness and goofiness (and its characters which behave in wholly illogical ways) kept me at an arm's length and prevented me from seeing the film as much more than an exercise in conjuring a mood than anything else.