It’s certainly not the case with High-Rise, a brilliantly, riotously surrealist film that makes the human condition look alien and yet scarily familiar.
Based on J.G. Ballard’s 1975 modern classic novel, it centres on a young doctor (played by Tom Hiddleston) who is seduced by the lifestyle of a high-rise apartment building in which the residences get more expensive the higher up you go - ranging from the council housing-esque bottom floors to the wild opulence of the penthouse.
Maybe it’s the fact that Hiddleston once played F. Scott Fitzgerald [2011’s Midnight in Paris], but for a dystopian British drama set in the 70s, it weirdly (and not displeasingly) reminded me of The Great Gatsby. Innocent young narrator drawn into mad parties with half-enthusiasm, half skepticism? Check.
Mysterious millionaire designing these parties for reasons and befriending our protagonist for reasons that are unclear? Check. Array of characters who fall in and out of love at whim and an over-arching theme of the corrosive nature of wealth and the pursuit of it? Also check.
