Moviegoers in the UK are almost a month out from the release of High-Rise, the latest in a growing line of Ben Wheatley’s psychological thrillers.
If Kill List focused on the unhinged mindset of a former soldier, and Sightseers chronicled the backroads journey of Alice Lowe and Steve Oram’s peculiar couple, then Wheatley’s latest very much places us in the shoes of a relatively sane protagonist: Tom Hiddleston’s successful Dr. Robert Laing, who seeks to start a fresh chapter in his life by taking up residence in the title tower block, only to discover that it’s harboring a dark, unspeakable secret.
Jeremy Irons stars as the seedy architect Anthony Royal, the creator that designed the sky-scraping cesspools in the first place. Ordering the lower class to the bottom and the upper echelons of society, High-Rise quickly descends into a dystopian nightmare of drugs, violence and sex, with Hiddleston’s newcomer caught somewhere in between.
Based on J.G. Ballard’s novel of the same name, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, James Purefoy, Reece Shearsmith, Peter Ferdinando and Dan Renton Skinner round out the cast.
High-Rise is on course to release in the UK come March 18 via StudioCanal. No US due date has been pegged down at the time of writing, though we fully expect Wheatley’s latest to make the journey across the pond later in 2016.
1975. Two miles west of London, Dr. Laing moves into his new apartment seeking soulless anonymity, only to find that the building’s residents have no intention of leaving him alone. Resigned to the complex social dynamics unfolding around him, Laing bites the bullet and becomes neighbourly. As he struggles to establish his position, Laing’s good manners and sanity disintegrate along with the building. The lights go out and the elevators fail but the party goes on. People are the problem. Booze is the currency. Sex is the panacea.