Why Tom Hiddleston’s ‘High-Rise’ Is Better Than Its Source Novel

More than once throughout his 50-year career, British writer J.G. Ballard’s writing turned out to be eerily prescient. From the more straight sci-fi of his early-60s work to the surreal and often controversial satires of the ’70s, Ballard had an uncanny knack for turning humanity’s worst tendencies into art. His works have been adapted to film by directors as disparate as David Cronenberg and Steven Spielberg, a testament to the range of his talents. One of his most celebrated works, 1975’s High-Rise, received its own film treatment back in 2015, courtesy of eclectic filmmaker Ben Wheatley, the director behind such acclaimed indie fare as Kill List, A Field in England, and Free Fire.

Following the residents of a state-of-the-art high-rise apartment building that quickly devolves into chaos when the amenities break down, Ballard’s novel chillingly satirizes the ways that the upper classes cannibalize each other when their imagined social order begins to crumble. As effective as Ballard’s novel is, Wheatley’s adaptation may be even more disturbing, vividly illustrating Ballard’s increasingly grotesque imagery in full color. While it was met with mixed reviews upon release, High-Rise is a beautifully and brutally rendered dystopian nightmare. It was recently added to Netflix, so curious viewers can check out its madness for themselves.

High-Rise

Release Date

November 22, 2015

Runtime

112 minutes

‘High Rise’s Self-Contained World

Tom Hiddleston stars as Robert Laing, a doctor who’s recently moved into a brand-new housing development that’s still under construction, with only one of five buildings ready for tenants. The place purports to usher in a new way of living, one where all the residents’ needs are met. It has its own grocery store, spa, gym, and other amenities, not to mention the bustling social lives of its well-to-do residents, which include an actress, a TV anchorman, lawyers, and any number of other professional types. Before long, going to work is the only time many of them feel the need to leave at all.

Laing does his best to try and fit into the social order, befriending some residents and sleeping with single mom Charlotte (Sienna Miller). He draws the attention of the building’s architect and first resident, Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons), but it quickly becomes clear that even a doctor is viewed as too low-class for the building’s upper-level tenants. Not long after he arrives, the lower levels begin to lose power, and things quickly devolve from garden-variety debauchery to all-out class warfare. Wheatley effectively renders the building’s decline in a series of arresting images: fruit going moldy, garbage piling up in stairwells, unidentified fluids smeared on walls.

The residents quickly lose any sense of empathy or feeling for the escalating atrocities happening all around them, and eventually even death becomes routine. The effect becomes numbing for the viewer after a while too, but this seems intentional on Wheatley’s part. These people rapidly lose any semblance of community or humanity, controlled by their most basic urges, and Laing shifts from the audience’s point-of-view character into another one that’s all too willing to embrace the chaos.

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Why the Film Might Surpass the Book

Ballard’s novel is plenty unsettling on the page, but its effect feels amplified in a film format. Ballard writes in a sort of clinical, detached tone, which has the effect of flattening some of the book’s power. This may have been an intentional choice on his part, a way of rendering the residents’ growing malaise in prose, but the film provides a sense of immediacy that isn’t really present in the novel. It comes down to the strengths and weaknesses of each medium. The novel allows the reader to fill in the horrors with their own imagination, while the film renders them in flesh and blood.

High-Rise was something of a disappointment when it came out, topping out at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and failing to make back its budget in theaters. Interestingly, what many critics pointed to as flaws — its chilly tone, its unpleasantness, its emphasis on surface style — all feel like strengths when watching today. It’s true the film is quite gruesome at times, but it serves to highlight the characters’ rapid descent into tribalism and barbarity.

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As for the style, it’s quite impeccable, all gleaming mirrors and harsh angles, evoking a sort of retro-future ’70s aesthetic until the wheels fall off. Even this feels deliberate, a reflection of the hollowness and vapidity underneath the pretty surfaces. The building becomes something of a character in itself, with an imposing, Brutalist design that looks like a stack of cards just about to topple over.

In its mix of sterility and brutality, the film often feels like an homage to Cronenberg, whose own 1996 adaptation of Ballard’s novel Crash stirred up plenty of controversy upon release. The presence of Jeremy Irons highlights this, having done some of his best work as twin gynecologists in 1988’s Dead Ringers. With its self-contained housing block setting, it evokes Cronenberg’s early film Shivers, which features a Canadian apartment building descending into madness.

High-Rise might not be an easy watch, but it mostly achieves what it sets out to do in adapting Ballard’s novel. As the world still deals with the lingering societal effects of Covid-era isolation, tribalism, and growing class divides, its themes feel more potent than ever.

You can view the original article HERE.