Like J.G. Ballard’s novel, Ben Wheatley’s vision of High Rise takes place in a luxury apartment block in the 1970s, where every amenity is provided for the building’s residents. Hiddleston plays Dr. Robert Laing, a young doctor who is trying to make a fresh start on life by joining the building’s isolated society of yuppies and social climbers.
The claustrophobic setting and stylishly surreal tone invite comparisons to Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer, which saw Chris Evans lead a rebellion among the post-apocalyptic remnants of humanity.
Intentionally cut off from the rest of the world, the High Rise lifestyle slowly begins to decay. As the electricity sputters out and the supermarket runs out of food, the community gradually dissolves into Lord of the Flies chaos, interspersed with Judge Dredd-like shots of the building’s retrofuturistic concrete exterior.
It’s a slow burn, but the film’s opening scene gives us a gruesome taste of things to come: a flash-forward to Laing sitting calmly on his balcony, eating someone’s pet dog.
Once news broke that The Weinstein Company had acquired international rights to Bong Joon-ho’s hotly anticipated Snowpiercer, it was perhaps inevitable that the film wouldn’t make it to Western screens unscathed. It has now been revealed that Harvey Weinstein has ordered the revered Korean cineaste to cut a whopping 20 minutes from his film before it will see the light of day in North America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand or the UK.
