High-Rise (2015)

Before Fonzi notoriously 'jumped the shark', the go-to, classical-standards-be-damned punchline for subversive '70s comedy was, apparently, 'kill the dog'. National Lampoon magazine drew some coveted notoriety from a magazine cover flaunting the gleeful threat of moral violation. And then there's J.G. Ballard's High-Rise, here cinematically adapted by A Field in England oddball Ben Wheatley, which not only has its cake, but eats it too. If cake were a dog. Um.

About as confusing, misguided, and distasteful a metaphor as you can imagine? Probably – but it fits Wheatley's film especially well, then. High-Rise's incisive satire about social performativity, conformity, and the social class discrepancies left to descend from hyperbolic madness into bloody chaos still plays well, with a snide undercurrent critiquing the retro- trendiness of hipster culture, even if the obnoxiously yuppie culture of high-rise inhabitants likely felt a bit more topical when the novel was written 40 years ago. The first half of Wheatley's film is sharper and more cutting, but the second act descends into mess, violent mayhem, and inevitable cannibalism too quickly for it to not feel somewhat aimless and unmotivated. Sure, there are key structuring moments – a series of extensive power outrages, where shoddy apartment construction is mistaken for exploitation of the bourgeoisie – here represented as the inhabitants of the 'lower floors' – some yuppie parties of escalating ferocity, and one of the most gruesome pool parties in cinematic history, but, for the most part, the descent into chaos is coded as ambiguously 'just because'.

This Lord of the Flies approach is, conceptually, viciously funny, but Wheatley's direction, playing it all as surrealist art cinema, results in a sluggish, plodding pace, leaving audiences fidgety, so that even the apocalyptic chaos of the latter half is unnecessarily snoozy. Why do the inhabitants not simply leave the high-rise, instead of sliding into rape, murder, and feudal mess, living off bonfires and purloined supermarket goods? Aye, there's the satirical rub, but it wears thin with insufficient clever lines substantiating the inhabitants' self- imposed stagnation (surely there's some sort of "hard to get a flat in London, innit?" gag to be made?). By the time we conclude with a Thatcher voice-over, so forced it actually drew groans from our audience, there's an indisputable feeling of things being taken too far, the metaphor trod to death, and the point moot.

This is not to say all is lost. Some moments of artful insanity work better than others – a string quartet cover of ABBA's S.O.S. accompanying a prissy Elizabethan-era costume party is particularly gleefully inspired (Clint Mansell's musical score is eerily apropos throughout), while an initially triumphant chant of "Swimming pool! Swimming pool! Swimming pool!" becomes a memorably gruesome dirge retroactively. Wheatley has a keen eye for beautifully weird imagery, refracting hundreds of sombre Tom Hiddlestons in a bismuth crystalline elevator, while the stark, chic modernism of the high rise complex shot in atmospheric long shot over a seemingly endless parking lot transforms into an increasingly apocalyptic monolith as the film progresses. Still – its an odd feeling to be in the midst dog-and-people- eat-dog anarchic revolt and lament the loss of more focused, buttoned-up snark of the film's early days.

If nothing else, the film's cast all excel, unearthing treasure troves of character and charisma amidst the somewhat bland archetypes the script leaves them with. Tom Hiddleston, in a rare but welcome starring role, is unquestionably the show's strongest asset. He's frequently shirtless and dances, so the film comes with a built-in Tumblr audience from the get-go, but it's worth checking out for his nuanced and subtle performance as well, hiding the right reservoirs of pain and madness under a veneer of immaculate calm about to crack. Luke Evans is also spectacular, in full-on voracious, nearly feral scene-stealing mode as a wannabe documentarian turned anarchic piledriver behind the revolution. Sienna Miller and Elisabeth Moss each impress as apartment residents negotiating different strands of the social infrastructure as the mad parties descend into pure madness, while Jeremy Irons is a great comedic foil as the building's architect, fussily oblivious as the pretentious world he has constructed crumbles around him.

Wheatley's film has often been compared to Fawlty Towers as directed by David Lynch (while also owing a lot to Jean-Luc Godard's similarly nihilistic social class satire Weekend), but there was far more method to Cleese's madness than is on display here. In terms of dystopic class allegories about societal revolt and occasional cannibalism, 2013's Snowpiercer flips the entire tale horizontally onto a train, and does a better job to boot. As it stands, High-Rise is, like its residents, fun and classy at first, but it's important to get out while the going is good before it all goes to hell - in more than one way.

-6.5/10