TIFF 2015: Tom Hiddleston Gets Naked (and Gnarly) in the Dizzying, Divisive ‘High-Rise’
Tom Hiddleston seems like a nice enough chap: Even when he’s playing a vengeful, Asgard-aspiring Marvel villain (Thor) or a glum, expatriate rock-and-roll vampire (Only Lovers Left Alive), the 34-year-old English actor has a molecular-level charisma that makes his nastiest moments palatable. That serves him well in the new movie High-Rise, which debuted this week at the Toronto International Film Festival — and quickly became one of the most divisive movies of the event, inspiring mixed reviews and even prompting more than a few walk-outs (at one screening, a good 20 or so people streamed to the exits during the film’s first hour).
Related: Read our complete Toronto coverage
The split reaction is understandable. It’s hard to think of a recent movie with this big of a cast and this sizable of a budget that’s so outright outré as High-Rise. Based on the 1975 novel by J.G. Ballard, it’s the story of Dr. Robert Lang (Hiddleston) a successful physiologist who, after the death of his sister, moves into a newly built, ridiculously opulent English apartment complex (High-Rise’s exact year is never given, but based on the shaggy muttonchops and even shaggier rugs, it’s clearly set in the late ‘70s, just as the Thatcher era is getting underway).
The upper floors of the building are reserved for the rich — including the patriarchal architect, played by Jeremy Irons — while the lower floors are for the less-well-off families with kids. But as the power supply begins to wane, and as the communal pool becomes overcrowded, an intra-building kerfuffle begins, with Lang torn between his upper-echelon job and his lower-floor friendships.
It’s not giving away much to say that what follows is a sex-slathered, baroquely grotesque battle between the classes: After all, this is a movie that begins with Hiddleston, bloodied and burnt out, dining on one of the apartment’s pets (suffice to say: if you’re the type of person who regularly needs to consult the site Does the Dog Die?, this is not the movie for you). As we flash back, we watch Lang and the rest of the residents — including Sienna Miller and Luke Evans — slowly degrade themselves: Stupor-inducing orgies are held in penthouses. Horses begin roaming the halls. Lang has lusty sex with an upstairs neighbor (Elisabeth Moss), and even lustier sex with a downstairs neighbor (Sienna Miller). (He also strips down a few times — a fact not lost on the internet — though Hiddleston fans hoping for a looky at his loki may be disappointed.)
High-Rise was directed by Ben Wheatley, the English filmmaker whose work includes the twisty hired-killer thriller Kill List and the deadpan murder-travelogue Sightseers. High-Rise is his biggest movie yet, and its visual style alone ensures the movie cult-classic status down the line. There are gorgeously staged moments of excess and brutality that recall A Clockwork Orange; tinges of psychedelia that bring to mind movies like the Monkees’ Head; and detail-obsessed production design that’s borderline-pornographic in its lushness. Every frame is freeze-worthy, even if they’re often part of longer sequences that might feel like an endurance test.
But what ultimately holds High-Rise together — especially during its chaotic, and occasionally lurching, final half-hour — is Hiddleston himself. He could easily have played Lang’s decline with cartoonish camp, but instead, he remains even-keeled and almost downright serene. For many viewers, he’ll be the only element of High-Rise that keeps them tethered to the screen — and prevents them from checking out.
