Review of High-Rise (2015) by Pete H — 14 Apr 2016

JG Ballard published High Rise in 1975 as a remarkably prescient allegory of the dangers to society of rampant individualism. Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump's adaptation is made in full memory of the excesses of the eighties and Thatcherite economics.

Tom Hiddleston's cool and self contained neurosurgeon moves into a high tech apartment block where middle class society is stratified by the level on which people live, with a thin veneer of aristocracy, the architect (a reptilian Jeremy Irons) and his hangers on living at the top. A society already cracked with drugs and disintegrating marriages soon descends into anarchy as the building's systems fail, prompting a fight for resources.

This is not in any Marxist sense a tale of class war. This is the aspirational middle class in a desperate individualistic struggle for advancement which results in the overthrow of the traditional hierarchy and the victory of the cool technocrat. In an echo of the women's movement of the 80s, the only non- combatants are female.

There are clear parallels to Lord of the Flies, but I would put High Rise, in its satire on eighties morality, as being closer to a British version of American Psycho.

This is a film which improves with reflection. As I write this the morning after seeing it, I am remembering more and more depth and detail. I'm thinking it would be worth watching a second time.

The look of the film is fantastic, the near future as seen from the 70s, all browns, oranges and concrete brutalism.

The cast are also excellent, as well as Irons and Hiddlestone, Sienna Miller is excellent as a decadent but dedicated mother, Elizabeth Moss is a charismatic earth mother and Luke Evans is a force of nature as the chief rebel, Richard Wilder.

Two things which concerned me were the playing of Thatchers' voice on a radio at the end and the type-casting of Hiddlestone. The former is unnecessary, the allegory is powerful enough with an effective sub-titling for the hard of thinking being tacked on at the end. As to the latter, for an actor who really came to movie prominence chewing the scenery as Loki, he does seem to be being repeatedly cast in the same self controlled role. This performance is virtually identical to that in the recent Night Manager.