Sandy
In this dystopian world based on J. G. Ballard's 70s novel, there is no room for realism, but excessively absurd situations take over the story. Here, there are social criticisms and humor for those who are so made, yet far from what suits everyone. The stylistically interesting weighs up the increasingly flawed location, where Jeremy Irons lives at the top of this gated community for those with money, and for those with devilish lot of money. At the top of a horse, on the fifth floor you can shop for a week. It is rumored about a brothel on any of the floors.The skyscraper is so ridiculous that it is impossible to miss it totaly absurd metaphorism , where tenants are cells, and corridors and lifts are its blood circulation. But then the lifts begin to stop and the power disappears periodically. The fruit in the supermarket rots, injustice takes its right. In the midst of all this is the relatively sobra Tom Hiddleston, looking out over the misery that climbs to the top of the money line.Stylistically, this evocation of a world "prone to fits of mania, narcissism and power failure" is spot-on; you can smell the smoke and booze in which everyone is marinated, unhinged adults behaving like unruly children. And when that happens in the movie I'm completely speechless.
videorama-759-859391
I was quite intrigued, about how this film would come across. Yes, it's an original watch and inventively clever, but actually, especially through it's trashy moments, it becomes all too much. Through all it's madness, there is a underlying paper thin/thriller type of plot. An original indeed, but really, a movie with nowhere to go, so for it's near two hours, we have to endure crazier and crazier moments, some that had me on the verge of just turning off, as just finding it reaching the depths of stupidity, like say in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. But the film is magnetizing, and addictively a re watch with Hiddleston, the perfect lead. There's really something about this dude. He's a doctor, or so we believe, who we find at the start, living in the trashy depths of this swank British high rise apartment, where you have to earn living status, where we meet a vast selection of oddballs, that inhabit the building, divided into classes of people, from the upper class, ostensibly pompous assholes to the sickly poor. The whole complex is run by an aging, limping, Jeremy Irons. There are moments that will shock, ala: animal cruelty, which I totally abhorred and some moments that'll amuse, but this is one of those films that has to be seen once, while it won't cater to everyone's taste. Sienna Miller was very good as the sexy, seductive room mate, living upstairs from Hiddleston, while Luke Evans really stole the show, captivating, as a loser type/wannabe documentary filmmaker. The young over pregnant girl was cute and sweet. The young kid of high intellect, Mr Peabody and Sherman type with the frames, was the real movie stealer though. Yeah, the film does make it's points, about how there should be equality, but look beyond that, it's just madness, but somewhat addictive. Based on a novel by J.D Ballard who wrote the novel for Cronenberg's '97 cult hit, Crash, I must say I was disappointed for him to write something like this, as the story doesn't have same spark or nous, and wasn't electric, like that unforgotten hit, 20 years back.
tomsview
As I watched "High-Rise" I couldn't help wondering how they got the money for it. That must have been some pitch.I found the film buried deep in Foxtel Australia's Masterpiece Channel, but I'm beginning to think 'Masterpiece' is a destination for films that are impossible to categorise.A brief synopsis doesn't really prepare one for this film.A stressed-out doctor (Tom Hiddleston) buys an apartment in a supposedly state-of-the art, high-rise complex. He becomes embroiled in a warped "Animal Farm" existence with a class structure more or less dependent on what level of the tower block one lives on. Anarchy, and then chaos ensues as everyone parties maniacally while the facilities of the building begin to fall apart.Sound intriguing? Then you probably haven't seen the movie.It's like a mad cross between the films of Terry Gilliam and Peter Greenaway. There were sound pillars on which to construct "High-Rise" including likable actors: Tom Hiddleston with charm to spare as the doctor, and Jeremy Irons exuding gravitas as the architect who designed the building. Gorgeous Sienna Miller is also in it, but she is hard to recognise under dark hair, dirt and dried blood - I could never love a movie that treated her like that.The film has a classy score by Clint Mansell and brilliant special effects, but did J.G. Ballard's prose actually seem all that filmable? Brecht claimed that, "Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it". All the hammer does in "High-Rise" is beat your brains out.And the smoking. I haven't seen that much cigarette smoking by actors this side of the millennium - it is truly breathtaking in more ways than one."High-Rise" not only failed to expand my cinematic horizons, but it also committed the cardinal sin for a film - it's tedious. At two hours, it takes a long time to make any point at all.
