Review of High-Rise (2015) by Dan A — 18 Mar 2016

Where do I even start?

Okay, first of all, if you're planning on seeing this I'll just give you a heads up. This is one of those films that relies totally on overdrawn metaphors and symbolism. Basically, it's about British class structure but represented physically through the use of a skyscraper. The rich are at the top, and people get poorer as the floors decrease. Then the power to the building breaks down, causing society to rebel and dissolve in a very animalistic way. Got it? Not very difficult to determine.

Before I shit on it, I'll say that I really don't mind films that explore themes in such a way. I'm not somebody who demands everything within a movie to be spelled out for me by the director like I'm sitting in class at primary school. I quite like it when things are left up for individual thought and conclusions. But there needs to be substance beneath all the flash. Unfortunately for this, while I had no problem with the theme or the metaphors, and I really enjoyed the music, sound design and cinematography, the film is just a fucking headache.

Towards the end of the first act the story loses its focus. It devolves into a surrealist art exhibition just for the sake of it. I mentioned it was a headache, because it was, I have a huge one now as I write this. Too many experimental montages, too much erratic editing, and like I said none of it really adds anything to the story or overall point.

Tom Hiddleston is fine. I mean, he's okay, a bit forgettable. He's not a leading man in my eyes. If they ever remake The Invisible Man he'd be a decent casting choice, because I could see through him very easily in this, he just doesn't have a strong presence in my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong. The rest of the cast are okay too, but that's it.

High-Rise suffers from a bit of what I like to call "Wolf of Wall Street syndrome". Every single party, wild occurrence, alcohol or drug induced haze and debauched sexual activity is shown in detail. It's too much, it gets old, it hurts my eyes, ears and face. We don't need to see everything to know that it's happening. It's really used as a crutch because the story loses so much steam after the third act that they had to fill up the running time with something.

The politics presented aren't subtle. They really beat you over the head with them. So much so that they even end the film with audio from a Margaret Thatcher speech, before setting a punk song over the end credits. Are we still doing this, guys? It's SO outdated and pandering I couldn't help but groan. I imagine the director being a 55 year old former punk who still dyes what little hair he has left pink and wears a chain around his belt so his ripped jeans don't get pushed too far down by his belly. I jest, but seriously, it really gets me when people go for the low hanging fruit and shove pop-song politics into things for the hell of it, especially when the rest of the film really had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Overall, I can see people loving this, and more power to them, but it didn't vibe with me at all.