- Emilia Clarke vs The FBI in ABOVE SUSPICION [Trailer]
- Emilia Clarke vs The FBI in ABOVE SUSPICION [Trailer]
- Ben Wheatley Returns with IN THE EARTH [Trailer]
- Ben Wheatley Returns with IN THE EARTH [Trailer]
- Josh Hartnett is Memorable in Drug Drama INHERIT THE VIPER [Review]
- Cube Meets Saw in MEANDER Trailer from Mathieu Turi
- EIFF 2019: ANIARA is a Deeply Haunting Sci-Fi Experience [Review]
- BERLINALE 2021: TIDES Comes After Hell [Trailer]
- EIFF 2019: ANIARA is a Deeply Haunting Sci-Fi Experience [Review]
- Darkstar Pictures Announces Free Online Film Festival!
- Re: Occupation, Australian Sci Fi movie
- Slice of Life, Blade Runner inspired short
- Is Snowpeircer a sequel to Willy Wonka?
- Re: Yesterday
- Re: Yesterday
- Yesterday
- Re: White Night (or where do I get my 30 + from now?)
- Re: White Night (or where do I get my 30 + from now?)
- Re: White Night (or where do I get my 30 + from now?)
- Re: White Night (or where do I get my 30 + from now?)
- Don't Mess With the SCAVENGER [Trailer]
- BERLINALE 2021: TIDES Comes After Hell [Trailer]
- LUNATIQUE Director Returns with WASTELAND 3 Promo [Short Film]
- A Comet Destoys Earth in GREENLAND Trailer
- Interactive WAR OF THE WORLDS Adaptation Out Now!
- 8K Trailer for Train to Busan Sequel PENINSULA Drops Hard!
- Making a Bomb Shelter in a Funhouse is a Bad Idea in IMPACT EVENT [Trailer]
- Retro Slave: FOX's Post-Apocalyptic Sitcom WOOPS!
- TRAIN TO BUSAN Sequel PENINSULA Gets a Teaser Trailer
- New on Blu-ray and DVD for March 11, 2020
- The Apocalypse Kills Women in ONLY [Trailer]
- SATOR is a Welcome Addition to the Folk Horror Canon [Review]
- Women in Horror Month: NEAR DARK
- SOUTHLAND TALES: The Cannes Cut [Review]
- A Woman's Mind Unravels in BIGHT HILL ROAD [Review]
- TIFF 2020: Vanlife Gets a Reality Check in NOMADLAND [Review]
- TIFF 2020: APPLES, THE WAY I SEE IT, PIECES OF A WOMAN & ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI [Capsule Reviews]
- TIFF 2020: The Truth Tellers Return with THE NEW CORPORATION: THE UNFORTUNATELY NECESSARY SEQUEL [Review]
- TIFF 2020: NEW ORDER is Brutal, Violent & a Must-See [Review]
- TIFF 2020: ENEMIES OF THE STATE, Or Are They? [Review]
- TIFF 2020: HOLLER Explores Life in a Dying Town [Review]
- Split Personality Thriller MINOR PREMISE Coming Soon [Trailer]
- Who Hunts Who in HUNTER HUNTER? [Trailer]
- SKYLINES Is Coming! [Poster Premiere]
- Enter for Your Chance to Win a Blu-Ray Copy of 2067 [Contest]
- Saskatoon Fantastic Film Festival Returns with In-Person Event [Line Up]
- Family Drama & Creature Feature. WHAT LIES BELOW Brings Both? [Trailer]
- LUNATIQUE Director Returns with WASTELAND 3 Promo [Short Film]
- Producer Adrienne Biddle on Horror, Working with Bryan Bertino & Their Latest THE DARK AND THE WICKED [Interview]
- Joe Manganiello is a Washed Up Superhero in ARCHENEMY [Trailer]
- Nightstream Horror Festival Launches Next Week [Lineup]
- 2067 Director Talks Inspiration, Environment & Time Travel [Interview]
- THE STRANGERS Director Returns with THE DARK AND THE WICKED [Trailer]
- Michael Shannon is Crime Boss in ECHO BOOMERS [Trailer]
- Hair Extensions Get Horrific in BAD HAIR [Trailer]
- TIFF 2020: Vanlife Gets a Reality Check in NOMADLAND [Review]
- VIFF 2020: Sobriety, Reintegration & Telekinesis Come Together in THE CURSE OF WILLOW SONG [Interview]
- VIFF 2020: Revenge Thriller Re-Examined in VIOLATION [Interview]
- VIFF2020: Director Loretta Todd on the Making of Her Debut Feature MONKEY BEACH [Interview]
- TIFF 2020: APPLES, THE WAY I SEE IT, PIECES OF A WOMAN & ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI [Capsule Reviews]
- TIFF 2020: The Truth Tellers Return with THE NEW CORPORATION: THE UNFORTUNATELY NECESSARY SEQUEL [Review]
Jack In
Latest Comments
Latest Forum Posts
PA News
Latest Reviews
Older News
Crew
Marina Antunes
Editor in Chief
Vancouver, British Columbia
Christopher Webster
Managing Editor
Edmonton, Alberta
DN aka quietearth
Founder / Asst. Managing Editor
Denver, Colorado
Simon Read
UK Correspondent
Edinburgh, Scotland
Rick McGrath
Toronto Correspondent
Toronto, Ontario
Manuel de Layet
France Correspondent
Paris, France
rochefort
Austin Correspondent
Austin, Texas
Daniel Olmos
Corrispondente in Italia
Italy
Griffith Maloney aka Griffith Maloney
New York Correspondent
New York, NY
Stephanie O
Floating Correspondent
Quiet Earth Bunker
Jason Widgington
Montreal Correspondent
Montreal, Quebec
Carlos Prime
Austin Correspondent
Austin, TX







[Editor's Note: This review of High Rise originally ran during our coverage of 2015's Fantastic Fest. We are re-running it, as the film is available On Demand today, and hits theaters May 13, 2016.]
England, the 1970’s. Margaret Thatcher rules and the last vestiges of post-World War II optimism have been wiped away. Tight polyester and bell bottoms are omnipresent, the sexual revolution of the 60’s has given way to rampant debauchery, and everyone numbs themselves with sex, shopping and petty domestic obsession.
Dr. Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) has just moved into the perfect embodiment of the times: a state of the art tower block designed by reclusive architect Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons), whose top floor penthouse is bigger than most mansions and even sports the occasional horse.
Life in the high rise is full of the typical tenant squabbles and awkward social rituals at first. But, from the beginning, the tenants are bitterly aware of the building’s class differences, the poorer and less-respectable residents in the lower floors, the richer in the higher, and it only takes a handful of seemingly banal incidents to incite tensions among the floor classes, each banding into tribes. Laing, who lives on one of the middle floors, is caught between factions as they enter into all-out war and descend into madness.
While perhaps not as “unfilmable†a novel as one like “Naked Lunchâ€, J.G. Ballard’s “High Rise†is still a decidedly tough nut to crack in terms of cinematic adaptation, and rumors that this or that director are/were giving it a shot have persisted for more than a decade.
It took Ben Wheatley, a director who has built a solid body of work including “Kill List†and last year’s “A Field in Englandâ€, to finally bring the book to the big screen, and it’s an impressive feat for a number of reasons. Perhaps the most impressive of these is the way in which Wheatley has taken a highly respected work of speculative fiction and made it work as an incredibly well-paced piece of bizarro black comedy.
The novel is one of those works of literature that makes more and more sense the older you get and the more you revisit it, so it’s likely that the film will gain more and more of an audience over time, but upon first viewing it still manages to be an incredibly satisfying piece of visceral filmmaking, Amy Jump’s script deftly balancing shock and sociopolitical commentary.
One of the biggest challenges in adapting “High Rise†was always going to be the approach to character. Ballard’s characters are often people who seem respectable on the surface, albeit marginally peculiar, but harbor intense internal obsessions and often have an aloof quality that can make them extremely unsympathetic. Most readers of “High Rise†or “Crash†would prefer to keep a safe distance rather than admit we might be able to relate. Thankfully, Wheatley and screenwriter Amy Jump aren't interested in homogenizing and fully commit to the insanity and insists his cast do the same, and boy do they ever. Irons’ Royal is one of the nastiest characters he’s ever played, a manipulative genius as preoccupied with his meaningless routines as he is with the “mission†he believes his building represents.
Familiar faces like Elisabeth Moss, Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Sienna Guillory dive into their respective roles with so much ferocity that one can’t help but wonder if they didn’t see themselves as evangelists for the book’s harshest lessons. Pretty fearless stuff, and nobody gets out without looking really, really ugly. Luke Evans, as Laing’s rowdy, macho neighbor Wilder, is definitely the biggest scene-chewer here. Wilder is the impulsive and ego-bruised braggart who stirs the pot of unrest in the story’s early chapters, but things quickly grow larger than he can control or comprehend. Evans does an excellent job of showing the self-doubt and helplessness of a man who has spent his whole life pretending to be a great deal more cocksure than he might have even wanted to be. Finally, Hiddleston, rapidly becoming one of modern cinema’s most watchable actors, takes what could have been the least interesting character in the film, the observer caught between warring tribes, and creates his most compelling character to date. Laing is a chameleon, capable of seemingly genuine empathy one minute and an almost sociopathic indifference the next, and Hiddleston never pushes the role too far in either direction.
If you’re the sort of person who believes civilization is a frail construct and maybe even an outright lie, then you’ll have no trouble finding affirmation of this in the arts. From Flannery O’Connor to Nathaniel West to Ballard himself, from “Lord of the Flies†to Brazil, authors and filmmakers have long been fascinated by the downward spiral into madness that can happen in the midst of everyday society, and audiences return again and again to these cynical cautionary tales in the same way we slow down to get a better look at the aftermath of a car wreck.
Ballard’s “High Rise†came out in 1975, and it’s unsettling to note just how current its themes are, and even more unsettling to realize just how unsurprised we are by it. Transplant his tenants’ bitter discontent to the internet age and you won’t have to look hard to find the similarities, from the Occupy movement to the Ferguson riots to the typical chat room.
If there’s any comfort to be had, it’s in the possibility that cautionary tales are just that, cautionary, rather than prophetic, and in the catharsis of watching such an immediate and stunning telegram from the end of the world. What we do when we exit the theater is, of course, entirely up to us.
High Rise is available On Demand today, April 28, and hits theaters May 13, 2016.
Recommended Release: High Rise: A Novel








bigbadbuddha1000 (4 years ago) Reply
Ballard was a hateful misogynist and anything BUT a conservative in the Thatcher sense of the word. A typical British self-exempting pseudo-intellectual in the vein of HG Wells. Here's an idea: R.I.P. to the 20th century and all the nostalgia. Let's look to the future not the future as dead malcontents envisioned it.

Christopher (4 years ago) Reply
Regardless of Ballard's political leanings, there is a Thatcher quote about free-market capitalism at the end of the film that makes it pretty clear Wheatley & Jump are interested in exploring what that system idealized really means.

mrkenray (4 years ago) Reply
someone just left a comment calling JG Ballard a "misogynist" - gotta be a Millennial. Poor thing.