Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews
CUFF 2016: High-Rise
High-Rise is the recent book to film adaptation of JG Ballards classic look into societal classes and isolationism. Ben Wheatley directed this film, and it's the first I've seen of his work as a director. The story follows a doctor who moves into a massive High-Rise apartment building, but his life is thrown into chaos when the tenants of the bottom and top floor basically go to war with each other, isolated in the confines of this one building. The film stars Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Luke Evans, and Elizabeth Moss.
Right out the gate, much like the book, this movie is weird. There's no real way to avoid it, this movie is really strange, and a lot of the characters are intentionally awkward, the society they live in is really odd and confusing. So when the war between classes starts to happen, it's made all the more stranger by these odd contemporary characters committing these acts of violence and insanity right before your eyes. In a lot of ways, this movie is like Snowpiercer meets Brave New World. So... Make of that what you will. I personally liked it, but I know a lot of people who didn't enjoy Snowpiercer or Brave New World, so if you're not one of those people, this movie may not be your thing.
However, much like Snowpiercer, this is a visually stunning movie. Not only are the shots and the angles in this film beautiful, but the colours in this film light up before your eyes. This movie is one of the more cinematographically creative films I've seen all year, there's a lot of shots and tricks of editing that I hadn't even thought someone would use in a film, and they really work to the films benefit.
Now, I'm gonna say something that's usually really controversial, and it usually leads to angry mobs of avid readers, but I need to say it anyway because I am not one to lie in a review. I enjoyed this movie more so than the book. Not exactly because I thought this was a great film, it has it's flaws, but more because I wasn't into the book. The book was kind of hard to follow, the protagonist did basically nothing, and in the last act of the book it started to feel like JG Ballard wrote the book as some sick misogynist fantasy. And this movie managed to take out all that stuff I didn't like about the book, keep all the stuff I did like about the book, and remain respectful to the source material. I've seen movies based on very recent books that don't even manage to accomplish that.
Final Rating
High-Rise is absolutely not for everyone. If you're a huge fan of the book, you won't like it. If you don't like strange movies, you won't like it. If you don't like films that are very style over substance, you won't like it. What I'm saying is that this movie has a very limited audience, I enjoyed it, but honestly I could see why most wouldn't. However, if all this sounds appealing, then by all means check out High-Rise.
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