Set in 1975, Tom Hiddleston
(Crimson Peak,
I Saw the Light) stars as successful physiologist, Dr.
Robert Laing, who has recently moved in to the 25th floor of one of
several new high-rise buildings in a not-quite-finished avant-garde
apartment complex in London. The architect of the complex, an
eccentric architect on the uppermost floor named Anthony Royal (Irons,
Batman v Superman), has
designed the buildings to never need to be part of the ground-level
activity surrounding the buildings, as each one offers its own means
of taking care of one's daily needs, from groceries, to schooling, to
entertainment, to a host of other amenities. Although everyone
pays the same rent money, the building also seems to have its own
class system in terms of who lives on what floor, as the elites live
in higher floors than those below. One of those below is Richard
Wilder (Evans, Furious 7), a documentarian who begins to suspect that there are great
inequities in the way the building is structured, threatening to
expose it for what it is to the public at large. As the new
building begins to show signs of faulty facilities in disrepair,
anarchy begins to take hold The resultant chaos erupts into a battle
between the haves and have-nots for whatever resources are left to be
had within the walls of the structure.
Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers) directs the adaptation of J.G. Ballard's 1975 visionary
counterculture novel of the same name (adding a hyphen) by his wife
and frequent collaborator, Amy Jump (A Field in England). Whereas Ballard's book is
more interested in how societal behavior might change when detached
from the external through sterile homogeneity, completely surrounded
by the relative security of steel, concrete, and newfangled
technological advances, Wheatley and Jump are more interested in
seeing the devolution of the building's system as a commentary on
social hierarchies and class warfare. Both stories do push
forward the petty issues of the respective parties involved, as well
as the unraveling into barbarism that takes hold without any authority
in place to keep the peace, akin to William Golding's "The Lord of the
Flies" in this regard. Interestingly, the subject of race is
sidestepped altogether, because all of the tenants are white, which
possibly says more about the owners of the buildings than anything
said in the course of the movie, though this negates any claim among
thematic dissectors of the film might have that this is supposed to
represent a microcosm of society.
Because the filmmakers are always keenly aware that the story is a
commentary throughout, the characters aren't fleshed out any more than
need be to fulfill their symbolic representation for the purpose of
the satirical beats. Robert Laing is meant to be our
through-line to understanding this caste system, as he can walk among
both the top and bottom dwelling residents, but outside of his
occupation and the fact that the recent loss of his sister has left
him without any family to speak of, he's about as enigmatic as the
rest. This leaves us to ponder why so much time and effort has
been given to the social deconstruction that runs rampant through the
film's second half, where it becomes a more graphic version of
Jean-Luc Godard's satire on the bourgeoisie, Weekend.
Without any single person to identify with, we can do little but watch
characters we have no rooting interest in, or much like, doing vicious
things to other characters we don't particularly care about, until we
get to the opening scene we all know will be coming at some point down
the road.
As mentioned in the film, there's no single moment that causes the
societal breakdown. Rather, it's the erosion that sets in once
the ability for both necessities and luxuries cease to be available,
causing those without to have to resort to more drastic means to get
what they feel is their right to have. Ironically, the rich are
too isolated to see the situation for what it is, thinking that it's
poor people who lack the ability to enjoy things for what they are,
always "making things about money." Allusions to the aristocracy
that rules France before the French Revolution are abundant, as the
rich above even have a costume party where they dress in their
Renaissance finest, and even 'eat cake'. Meanwhile, there are
nods to the decay going on around them, from the rotting fruit of the
supermarket, to the breakdown of the electronic equipment made to
foster a life of relative ease. In contrast to the J.G. Ballard
work, the film version of High-Rise is often too literal to
feel literary.
Though the film is clearly, from its outset, a semi-surreal satire on
class and capitalism, there are still things that aren't as adequately
explained in the film. For one, it's not adequately explained
why, when fearing for their lives, the inhabitants of the building
wouldn't escape when they have the chance with their spouses and
children. "Normal" society exists around them, and even though
the powers-that-be are doing a good job in keeping the goings-on away
from the authorities, it doesn't really make sense that 100% of the
people in the building would stay there as if it were a prison.
Reportedly, this aspect is explained better in the book as another
commentary on how one's sense of time and place become distorted by
one's current environment, but it's unsatisfyingly addressed in this
film. Also, the film shows many of the building's residents
heading out to the "real world" nearly every day to go to their jobs,
and presumably see family and friends, so the sense of isolation and
the rapid descent into madness seems unwarranted given they have other
outlets beyond the apartment complex.
High-Rise begins to wear thin as it plays through its nearly
two hour length, cycling through themes redundantly, which is further
compounded by the three-month flash-forward at the into that shows how
far conditions have devolved in the building, leading us to know
exactly where things are going from the outset. Whatever shock
value the film could have held is immediately muted by the knowledge
that the value of human life has become nil, and family pets will be
consumed when the food runs out. The film also needlessly
repeats the oft-repeated theme on capitalism with a clip from a speech
by Margaret Thatcher, who first rose to prominence as the leader of
the Conservative Party in Britain in the year the film is set.
If the film feels repetitive, it also feels antiquated, as it feels
nearly identical to other class-based satires to come since Ballard's
novel, most notably in Brazil, and most recently in the
nearly identical plot in Snowpiercer, in which class is
divided on a train by cars, with the lowest classes near the caboose
and the upper classes toward the engine. In the former, it's the
whole of society that is in a state of oppressiveness, while in the
latter, the entirety of known society is in one location. This
society within a society doesn't make nearly as much sense, so the
allegorical qualities fall apart. Perhaps additional nods to
Marie Antoinette aren't inappropriate; High-Rise tries to
have its cake and eat it too.
Qwipster's rating
:
©2016 Vince Leo
