High-Rise
Director: Ben Wheatley
Year Released: 2015
Rating: 1.0
Dr. Laing (Tom Hiddleston) moves into an apartment complex/"utopian society" designed by squash-loving Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons) - containing "the vanguard of the well-to-do" ... and those less wealthy beneath them - and soon discovers most of the residents are vile individuals - eventually, a "revolution" takes place. Too brash and obvious in its depiction of class warfare - it turns to the grotesque (in performance and direction) instead of a more nuanced, intellectual approach, ending with Laing "victorious" and consuming a canine for sustenance, having turned to savagery himself (unlike Snowpiercer, which neatly tied up entry-level Marxism with a conventional action picture). "It's my paint!" Hiddleston screams at one point ... and I'm not sure I was supposed to laugh.
