Light Hi-Fi - High-Rise is a 2015 British dystopian thriller drama directed by Ben Wheatley, starring Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienn...
Light Hi-Fi - High-Rise is a 2015 British dystopian thriller drama directed by Ben Wheatley, starring Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, and Elisabeth Moss. It was produced by Jeremy Thomas through his production company Recorded Picture Company. Its screenplay was written by Amy Jump and based on the 1975 novel of the same name by British writer J.G. Ballard.
The film is set in a luxury tower block during the 1970s. Featuring a wealth of modern conveniences, the building allows its residents to become gradually uninterested in the outside world. The infrastructure begins to fail and tensions between residents become apparent, and the building soon descends into chaos.
The film opens with Dr. Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) living in a ravaged tower block, killing a white Siberian husky and spit roasting it.The film flashes back to three months ago when life was more typical. The forty storey high-rise tower on the outskirts of London, built by esteemed architect Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons), is the epitome of chic, modern living. The upper echelons of society live in the top floors, while more common families live in the lower ones. The high-rise provides its tenants with a swimming pool, gym, spa, supermarket and even a primary school. There is little reason to leave the building outside of working hours and its occupants gradually become isolated from the outside world.
Laing moves into an apartment on the 25th floor, after his sister dies. He begins a relationship with single mother Charlotte Melville (Sienna Miller) and becomes a fatherly figure to her son, Toby (Louis Suc). He also becomes friends with Richard Wilder (Luke Evans) and his heavily-pregnant wife Helen (Elisabeth Moss), who live in a low-level apartment with their children. Laing works at a school of physiology. While he is cracking open a severed head, a student named Munrow (Augustus Prew) faints. Having taken a fall, he is given brain scans as a precaution. The next day, Laing is taken to the 40th storey penthouse to meet Royal, where he finds an opulent rooftop garden and is invited to a party being thrown by Royal's snobby wife, Ann (Keeley Hawes).
The party turns out to be an 18th-century costume party and Laing's everyday suit is ridiculed by Ann and other guests, including Munrow, who also lives in the building. Laing is thrown out of the party and becomes trapped in an elevator during a power cut. Such outages are becoming common, along with water being shut off and garbage chutes becoming blocked, much to the annoyance of the lower-floor residents. During a game of squash, Royal tells Laing that these are simply the growing pains of a new building.
Laing receives Munrow's brain scans, which come back clean. However, still angry about his humiliation, the vengeful Laing tells Munrow that they may have "found something". Another power out in the high-rise leads to a night of decadent partying in the hallways and apartments. A drunken and distressed Munrow commits suicide by jumping off the 39th floor, crashing onto the bonnet of a car. Wilder finds it suspicious that no police show up to the scene and becomes intent on exposing the injustices of the high-rise.Law and order begin to disintegrate in the building due to the failing infrastructure and increasing tensions between floors. Violence becomes commonplace, food from the supermarket becomes scarce and the building devolves into class warfare between floors. Garbage bags are piled high in the fire stairwells and there are spot-fires and graffiti through the lower floors. It is implied that Royal has been bribing authorities to ignore the chaos within the high-rise. Feeling guilty about Munrow's suicide, Laing shows signs of mental disturbance, eventually barricading himself in his apartment and settling into the chaotic atmosphere, even having sexual intercourse with Helen.
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- High-Rise (2015)
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