Wheatley’s stylish satire is caught up in confusion and complexity.
Hear what our Young Reviewer Cameron Blackshaw thought of High Rise, a screen adaptation of J. G. Ballard's 1975 novel.
A novel deemed unfilmable for many years, J. G. Ballard’s High-Rise has finally been tackled by Ben Wheatley, one of Britain’s most promising upcoming directors. This science fiction film is about a block of flats isolated from society and it’s decent into anarchy. The high-rise is also firmly divided by social classes with the rich living in the upper floors and the poor at the bottom. An interesting premise that isn’t fully utilised by Wheatley, who instead of creating a hard-hitting social commentary, chooses to orchestrate a witty yet dark comedy pockmarked with tragedy and seriousness. The comedic aspects happily carry the film but provide no help in explaining the motives of the various characters and the happenings of the nonsensical plot.
A stylistic masterpiece, praise must be given to the costume and production teams for capturing the British 70s vibe perfectly. The performance of the cast must also be commended. Led superbly by Tom Hiddleston as Dr Robert Laing, a new resident of the high-rise, the various characters breathe life into the confusing storyline. Luke Evans and Sienna Miller also shine as the rebellious Richard Wilder and the seductive Charlotte Melville.
The confusion of the film’s plot stems from the tower’s almost sudden descent into anarchy. Laing’s descent into madness (which eventually leads to him speaking about himself in the third person) is also unexplained. The multiple power failures only affect the lower floors which does cause tension and anger between the rich and the poor, but it still doesn’t explain the ruthless conflict that ensues. The realisation that the tower’s residents live in a society of their own could explain the madness, but why this is the case is also never explained.
The one thing that could explain it all is the tower block itself, which its architect Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons) seems to describe as a living thing. Royal once quips that the power failures and garbage chutes clogging up are simply ‘teething problems’. The mystery seems to lie in the tower block, but the confusing plot turns the promising social satire into a mind-bending dark comedy, which could have been Wheatley’s intentions all along.
Words by Cameron Blackshaw