Based on a novel by J.G. Ballard, the film stars Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss and James Purefoy. Hiddleston moves into a high-rise apartment building that offers a completely insular community for its residents, which is all fine and good until the systems begin to break down and then everything goes to hell.
Our own Kurt Halfyard was not terribly enchanted after seeing it at the Toronto fest: "The filmmaking here felt more like a challenge to disengage with the material. Yes, it is very punk and all, but so what? One can cringe at the bacchanal excesses of the upper floors, observe the emptiness of Dr. Laing's unpacked non-existence, or giggle a bit at Elizabeth Moss's absurd pregnancy belly and her sea of neglected children on the lower floors. This is not so much a story as a montage played out in very slow motion."
I saw it at Fantastic Fest last September, where it was greeted with decidedly mixed reactions. Frankly, I was exhausted and sat in the front row, so my perspective was even more skewed than ever. I didn't really "like" the film but it's certainly stayed in my mind as a distinctive and highly personal work, and, perversely, I look forward to watching it again when I'm fully awake.
High-Rise will be released later this year in the U.S. Here's a new trailer, to watch and wonder about.