High-Rise (2016)

Directed by: Ben Wheatley
Written by: Amy Jump (based on the novel by J.G. Ballard)

I really want to read this book.  I bet that almost everything I might have loved about this movie is presented, if not coherently, at least fully; if so, it corrects the thing I didn't love about this movie--namely that it is a mess. There are too many characters, narratives, isolated incidents, all thrown in seemingly for effect without fleshing any of it out. The *idea* is fully formed--too much so, actually, with a nice sledgehammer coda in case you missed the point--but none of the specifics are.

 I did love the look of it all. It's gorgeous and ghastly and engrossing from the opening shot. The cinematography, art direction, costume design, make up, and the performances are all top notch. You know that I hate a yeller and tend to prize those understated performances (here I'm talking Tom Hiddleston and Elisabeth Moss, even Jeremy Irons chewing some scenery here and there), but I'd give the MVP to Luke Evans giving the least subtle performance (and yelling a lot). I'd nominate him for something.

I was reminded of a lot of things while watching this (Trump, Caligula, LOST) but mostly I was reminded of Snowpiercer. I imagine Snowpiercer could have been inspired by this book (I did not check). But here's the difference. In Snowpiercer everybody's moving forward, purposefully, along with the movie itself. In High-Rise the traffic flows mostly upward, only sometimes things just get stuck in the elevator while other things go over the top and crash to the ground.

Edited after the jump to tell you what happened, sort of (from memory only and after some drinking).
Please watch it yourself to catch actual things that happen and sequence of events.



The movie opens with Tom Hiddleston being sexy in his Tom Hiddelston way (meaning probably not all that sexy if he were a guy you worked with but somehow incredibly sexy when he is on screen) but sort of less sexy because it is clear he is in some sort of state of post-apocalyptic grotesqueness and he is walking around a building and his teeth are very yellow as diagnosed by anyone not color blind and also by an actual character in the movie that might be or was some kind of dentist. These guys comment on a man who looks dead and whose head is inside of an actual TV (a little more on him later). There is a dog there. Tom is narrating and he talks about a guy named Liang who it turns out is Tom's character, so he is talking about himself in the third person. Tom appears to cook part of the dog on a rotisserie.  He says some things to set the stage and then we flash to THREE MONTHS EARLIER and now it is clear that Tom is going to show us how he got to this yellow toothed nightmare where a man was once a dentist and another man ended up inside a TV set, and that poor dog.

Tom is pre-apocalyptic sexy and moving into his new apartment in the High Rise. It is very swanky and beautifully shot. Somehow it comes up in a nice bit of dialogue that he is a doctor of some sort.

Tom falls asleep on his new balcony in the High Rise naked with some prop covering his goods. From above someone looks down on him and that someone is Sienna Miller and she is very flirty because Tom is naked and being sexy in his Tom way (meaning if Tom was a guy you worked with he would be skinny and pale but because he is a movie star he has a super nice body with the abs and the V and all that). Sienna is accompanied by Luke Evans who is called Wilder and he is the only person I will call by his character name for the rest of this recap.

Tom apologizes for being naked. Sienna says something like "please don't" because yeah seriously just apologize for the stupid prop cover (I mean you live in a high rise and you are on a balcony and there are balconies above you so why is he surprised?). Sienna invites Tom to a party upstairs at her place later. Everyone will be there.

Wilder wants to fuck Sienna but she says you're not my type and somehow it is mentioned that Wilder has a wife.  Wilder talks about how he will break a news story. He is some kind of journalist.

Tom has a recently deceased sister and he is sad about it. A photo of him and his sister is the one thing he unpacks and pins on his wall. Everything else remains in boxes for the rest of the movie.

One box is labeled and says "Books. Non Fiction" and I thought at the time that detail  was a nice subtle piece of character development for Tom's character but believe me it doesn't matter, and nothing else will be subtle from here on out.

James Purefoy (who apropos of nothing I rank in the top 3 of all people in the world that I want to marry) and some other people walk out of the high rise to their cars on the parking surface. James Purefoy gets in his expensive blue convertible and is shit on by a bird.

Another person walking out happens to be a news reporter. Wilder either works for this guy or wants to. This news guy is the head in the TV three months later, I think.

Tom goes to work where he is a doctor and he is teaching some people, interns I suppose, about anatomy of the brain (total guess) and he literally peels a face off a dead man's skull and then hammers into the skull and then saws into it. I missed most of this because I was eating and had to look down. I looked up when the male "intern?" faints. Tom is concerned he hurt his head.

Back in the high rise, Tom gets in trouble with a maintenance man type for using the laundry shoot wrong. Later we see the maintenance man skating down the hall with swiffers or something on his feet, presumably cleaning in an avant-garde sort of way.

Tom goes to Sienna's swanky party and everyone is indeed there. All the lower level residents of the building, anyway, including Wilder and his wife Elisabeth Moss who is very pregnant and smoking a lot. In a series of shots we see that Tom is almost fucking everyone but I think in the end only actually fucks Sienna.

Tom and Sienna fuck some more.

Tom becomes friends with Elisabeth Moss.

There is this strange young boy who keeps popping up and being a little creepy and he is good at building things like Legos or Lincoln Logs but more high tech. He is Sienna's son, and he likes to look at things through a kaleidoscope, like he is spying on people (and seeing their fragmented souls (?!?)).

Tom gets an invitation to come up to the penthouse on the top floor.  He gets on an elevator which I'd like to mention is mirrored and at some points throughout there are some real nice shots in there.

In the penthouse he meets the architect Jeremy Irons. He designed the high rise and has big plans for more high rises and they will all look like an up-turned hand where the palm will be the ground and the high rises will be the fingers. They are currently in building 1 and it is a specific finger but I forget which. An external shot of the high rise shows how it is curved and possibly looks like a finger. <I spend a few minutes holding out my hand and seeing what this might look like.>

Jeremy Irons has a huge garden and like a French palace lawn on his penthouse balcony and he has a wife who loves all this. He has a pet dog (who you may sadly recognize from the rotisserie in the beginning). A horse makes a noise on the giant balcony and Tom says "is that a horse?" and Jeremy Irons says something like "yes my wife likes to ride" so there is a horse living in this garden off the penthouse of the high rise. Tom is invited to the wife's party later.

Jeremy Irons and Tom talk some more. Jeremy Irons wants to bring about change. I actually believe him that he wanted it to be positive change but is just clueless to reality (I feel this is open for debate.) Jeremy Irons also says "so you're fucking 374?" (or whatever Sienna's room number is). Tom says "she has a name" or something gallant like that. Tom agrees to play squash with Jeremy Irons at 6 a.m. <I spend a few minutes thinking about people making plans at 6 a.m.>.

Tom visits the grocery store on one of the floors of the high rise. It is highly stylized and all the labels are generic-like. He buys some things and a bottle of Riesling. In the grocery store he is approached by a lady and a dog and she says "do you want my autograph?" And he is like, uh, no? And she gets mad. The check out girl explains she is a famous actress.

Tom goes to the penthouse party with his bottle of Riesling and when he steps off the elevator everyone is dressed in costume like it is a French palace pre-revolution. Tom is dressed in a modern suit that makes him look sexy in that Tom way but definitely out of place here. Everyone from the upper levels is there. The Jeremy Ironses. James Purefoy. The TV news man. Even the intern? that fainted is there at the party with his parents. The intern? makes fun of Tom's clothes. Some sort of "heavy" tells Tom to leave and makes fun of his Riesling and calls him cheap.

Tom hangs out with Wilder and his pregnant wife Elisabeth Moss. They are hosting a bunch of kids, maybe at a birthday party for their own kids or something. They have recently been told to leave the high rise pool because it was closed for a private party. Kids are throwing like pudding or something off the balcony onto the cars below including James Purefoy's blue convertible (this actually may happen later on but oh well). As they talk more about this private party Wilder gets mad and decides to go wild and he leads the children on a march/protest to the pool where they are going to swim. They go to the pool and ruin the elite's pool party and Wilder drowns the dog that is owned by the actress. She becomes despondent. It was like a child to her.

Because the intern? fainted Tom asks to run some scans to make sure there was no head injury. Because the intern? was a jerk to him, I think Tom decides to lie and tell the intern? they found a tumor or something on his scan and maybe he will die. I think Tom was lying because he smiled a little bit. Later on (and I guess as a result) the intern? jumps off the building and lands on James Purefoy's blue convertible and the impact is in slow motion (pretty cool) and afterward there is blood all over the hood and a nice body-shaped dent.  The lower levels wonder "why didn't the police come when the guy fell off the building?" I don't think that I know the answer to that question even now.

It is revealed somewhere that Sienna's young son who likes to build fancy Legos is actually Jeremy Irons son (get it, architect?).

From there I have no idea what happened. The electricity and water and such stop working. A war of sorts breaks out between the lower level high rise dwellers and the upper level high rise dwellers. The upper level folks have a meeting where they decide they should act but also they talk about food. The upper level residents want Tom to lobotomize Wilder.

Tom fucks very pregnant Elisabeth Moss.

Insert orgy somewhere.  I forgot where.

All hell breaks loose basically. and the Jeremy Ironses fire or maybe kill their maid. They possibly force very pregnant Elisabeth Moss to be their new maid. Wilder gets real bloody and spends several scenes with blood all over his face (kudos to the make up folks). Jeremy Irons' heavy and Wilder have a fist fight. Wilder kills Jeremy Irons. The upper level ladies kill Wilder. A lot of other people die, I think. Elisabeth Moss has her baby. Tom lies down in a post-apocalyptic bed with Sienna. It is almost over.

Then Sienna's son Jeremy Irons Junior is listening to a radio broadcast of a Margaret Thatcher speech where she talks about capitalism and freedom. SLEDGEHAMMER

I have not done this movie justice but that's mostly what I remember. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

REQUIRED VIEWING: Snowpiercer