Happy Monday, readers! I have recovered from the depths of having strep throat via almost a whole week of taking upwards of three naps a day, watching an obscene amount of Great British Bake Off, and blessed amoxicillin. But after a week of watching sweet things and thinking nice thoughts about my throat healing, I'm ready to dive back into the depths of a uniquely apocalyptic and strange Movie Crush this week.
We're following James Purefoy from one type of apocalypse (Cait's MCM last week,
Resident Evil) to another this week with 2015's
High Rise. Based on J.G. Ballard's novel,
High Rise follows the residents of an apartment block as life starts to spiral further and further out of control. The first thing to say about this movie is that it's not an easy watch. Almost every moment is filled with a deeply uncomfortable tension, and you walk out of this film really wanting to take a shower and call your mom.
Tom Hiddleston heads up the cast of
High Rise, playing a young doctor in the 1970's who moves into a high rise apartment building and quickly finds himself caught up in a class war gone mad. The higher class residents live on the upper floors, and the lower class residents live on the lower floors. Hiddleston's character is somewhere in the middle, befriending a lower class family at the same time that he desperately wants to be part of the high (literally) society. It puts him in a unique position once the class war turns physical.
The rest of the cast is a who's who of amazing performers, and they all bring a great physicality to their performance. From Luke Evans and Elisabeth Moss, to Sienna Miller and Jeremy Irons, there's not a bad performance in the bunch. As the building struggles with power outages, garbage issues, and water problems, each of the actors gets to stretch their muscles a bit to show the mounting tensions between the residents.
For a film that's at heart about British class struggles in the 70's, there's a really breathtaking visceral feel to
High Rise. There's a scene near the beginning of the film where Hiddleston is grocery shopping, and even as pedestrian an event as that feels like it could become bloody at any second. And that makes the very real violence that we get to by the end of the film feel right at home. It's an incredibly visual experience, and by the time we reach the climax there's a fever pitch vibe to every second of screentime.
Happy Watching!
CT
Comments
Post a Comment