High Rise

[supamabel]

Just watched High Rise. Although it is clearly very well acted, with a cracking cast including the deliciously-everywhere Tom Hiddlestone, a watchable Sienna Miller, a suspiciously taught-of-skin Jeremy Irons and the excellent Elizabeth Moss, I can't say I actually enjoyed it. Mostly because I didn't have a clue as to what was going on. Society is clearly collapsing and the story is riddled with metaphors which went clean over my small-brained head. Which is a shame as I suspect it's good underneath all the weirdness. It's the sort of film where a hand out sheet explaining what the heck everything means would be useful.

I thought it was brilliant - agree it's full of metaphor but fantastic to watch without needing to analyse every moment.

Performances great, took me a while to get into the stylised aesthetic but then it totally got under my skin.

4* from me...

Great film!

To be fair, the book's like that too. I read it, got to the end, and thought 'What the jeff was that all about then?' Not to say I didn't enjoy it!

Looking forward to catching the film. Really don't rate Sienna Miller and she's not at all what I pictured from reading the book, but I'll tolerate her for the sake of Hiddleston and the rest of the cast who are quite marvellous. And Ben Wheatley is yet to disappoint me!

I'm hoping to see it this week - he is yummy!

I saw it last night, with no prior read-up, apart from knowing it was JG Ballard so I had an inkling of dystopian vision/allegory etc. But bloody hell - it was laid on with a great big trowel and I think the allegory got lost somewhere in the orgy. Sienna Miller was very good.

The whole seventies schtick made it all the more horror - reminded me of Clockwork Orange and snippets of films that were scary, and too old for me at the time. It was truly uncomfortable and the Wilder character (see what they did there?) was Oliver Reed all over again... but after a while I really didn't see the point of more and more of it... more drinking, more orgies, more grime and disorder. It made a salient political point (particularly post The-budget-only-for-people-who-vote-for-us thing)- I could see Bullingdon club everywhere in the shag pile - but then it went beyond and into something else. Not sure what.

Lord of the Flies meets Peter Greenaway meets...gaaah! By the way, did anyone else notice a bit of The Time Machine in there? With the concrete vents from the underworld appearing in the Royal's rooftop garden? Wilder climbs up to the top through one of them. And of course, the horse...terminal decadance and Bianca/Studio 54. By which time it was a kind of 'chuck everything in' symbolism.

Liked all the matchbox cars in the car park!

I saw it last week and am quite surprised I haven't seen more about it on MN.

I absolutely loved it - all the surreal bits and as OP says, a cracking cast.

I was decorating over the weekend so downloaded the unabridged audio boom (also read by TH) and listened to the whole thing over 3 days - it's very different to the film in lots of ways but not really any clearer in the end.

I think it's actually more scary now as I think the potential for a scenario like that actually occurring is probably greater than it was when the book was originally written in 1975.

I thought it was terrible. And boring. The only thing which made it bearable was Tom Hiddleston.

I saw it last night and thought it was trying way too hard to be achingly cool - no subtlety - the symbolism was laid on with a trowel - fruit going bad - ooh equals society going bad.

Didn't care for Sienna Miller's performance. All the characters in the film were completely two dimensional - don't know if that is the case in the book. Lots of 70's style sex and nudity.

Even the lovely Tom Hiddleston couldn't save it for me.

Watched it last night and I really enjoyed it. Sienna Miller surprised me as did Keely Hawes. I'm thinking more about it today and joining up the symbolism and character links. It was a little bit 'trowel-y' with metaphors spelt out in capitals-for instance the main protagonist being R.Laing/Ego and Wilder being Oliver Reed/Id.
The cinematography is fantastic and the design of the sets and buildings excellent.

I enjoyed it.

Lots of things did not necessarily make sense but I enjoyed it anyway.

The friend I saw it with commented on wanting to see more "difficult" films.