High-Rise- a review.

Talk about a movie with an interesting concept at its base.

A High-rise building is so super deluxe that you'd never need to leave. Indoor pools, gyms, gardens, supermarkets; every bit of comfort accounted for. And in this (towering) little world a class struggle  revolution breaks out between the lower floors and the higher uppers.

This concept alone is more than enough food for thought for an interesting film. And truth be told High-Rise wears it's social critique like a badge on the sleeve for all the world to see. But then, the movie  hides it behind a bombardment of visuals. It's this duality in the movie that loses me as an audience. There are three main reasons why I disliked High-Rise.

1. Not going up-not going down.

This is the most obvious one. I expected a pretty straightforward movie going in a singular direction. However, High-rise is a movie that loops and meanders all over the place before getting where it wants to go. Naturally this fault resides mainly in my own expectation. But let’s not forget that the movie opens with the end; with Lainge leading a life of an urban hunter gatherer. The minute you see that you (the audience/me) wants to get there as fast as you can. And then a two hours movie is a long time to wait. I think the best choice would have been not to show the end result in the opening.

2. Visuals over story.

A movie is telling a story by pictures. And that's the tricky balance to strike. Superhero movies -for instance- have a tendency to focus more on the explosions and special effects rather than the story. And this movie suffers the same. Except this time it's not the special effects but rather an attempt to put as much debauchery and weirdness in the movie as possible. Which results in interesting frames and shots but doesn't really help much with the story.

Now, I can understand 'why' this choice for visuals. Because when you boils the story down to its basics more questions will arise than answers. The big ones being: What in the good lord's name caused this overtly weird behavior of the people of the High-Rise? But lest not forget that this movie is based on a book in the (hardly sober) seventies.

3. Trying to be all clever.

High-Rise makes itself far too complex for his own good. One scene ends with Lainge telling a student of his that he has a brain tumor. The next show features him pushing a toilet paper wrapped person through a hallway. Immediately you think that that wrapped up person is the student. Nope it isn't, it's somebody else. High-Rise is littered with these little (what should I call them) 'tricks'. It could be on purpose. Like any good who-dun-it, to keep me on my toes as it were. But why should it? To me it feels a bit like trying to reinvent the wheel of movie-storytelling. If it works that's great. But if it doesn't it hurts the movie.

So in short I -a massive story/script junky- got a movie that I wasn't expecting. A movie focused more on visuals than story. And, for a movie that had already lost my interest, tried to overcomplicate everything for no apparent reason. But that doesn't make it a bad movie. It just makes it a movie that I don't really care for, that's fine.

Oh and to get this one out of the way too. It's not that I didn't understand the movie! What's not to understand anyway. However, this is pretty much the goto argument when dealing with these kind of 'high brow' movies. I always call this the 'emperor's new clothes'-argument. Pretending to be something doesn't make it so.

It is a good movie?

So what is good? The visuals are perfectly fine. There are some nice shots in there and as the madness increases so do the 'Dutch angles' (wiki it). The acting is fine too but unfortunately the whole tone of the movie is deadset on making you not care for a single person on screen (not even the dog).

And then there is, for me always, the script. Which, to me, basically reads as a brainstorm session of orgies, drugs and weirdness tied together with some social critique to make it seem important. If you take all the bull out you basically got a fifteen minute story. And that -to me- is the problem. Because this movie could have been so good. The premise is, after all, very interesting.

Now, I loved the alternative 80s setting. Or this little silliness of the cashier learning French (why he left the book? Never explained). But the movie only glances at it, never focuses. It has too many orgies it wants to show.

I would have preferred a different movie with some likable, layered characters that slowly spiral down into a class struggle madness. Not this mad from the start drug fuelled kaleidoscope attack on the senses. In short, High-Rise's concept starts high for me but quickly tumbles down.

But hey, to paraphrase the dude: 

"that's just like my opinion man". 

So please watch it and make up your own mind. I can't like every film but I can certainly recognize quality. High-Rise, to me, is like last year's the Lobster. Great film. But I hated every bit of it.