Recorded Picture Company and British Film Institute in collaboration with director Ben Wheatley and screenwriter Amy Jump are set to bring an adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s sci-fi novel High Rise to cinemas in May. The film stars Tom Hiddleston (Thor), Jeremy Irons (Kafka) and Sienna Miller (Foxcatcher) among others.
The film centers on an opulent residential high-rise in which all the trappings of life are provided. Life for its residents spiral out of control as the privilege and elegance slips into primal and violent behavior.
Time Out London caught up with Tom Hiddleston to ask him about the movie. When asked about the political undertones of the picture, Hiddleston opined, “Quietly, yes. If you have a political sensibility, you will get that from the film. Some people might see it as a ‘Lord of the Flies’-type experiment of stripping away the mask of civil manners to reveal the animal underneath…”. Speaking about the original book and its author, Hiddleston said, “Ballard saw himself as a man standing at the side of the road with a sign saying ‘Caution, bends ahead!'”
Ben Wheatley spoke to Variety about the look of the film — “Laurie Rose, the DP, and I talked a lot about the choice to shoot on film or digitally and whether to ape more ’70s styles or not. We realized in the end we didn’t want to get too far away from the filmmaking grammar we’d set in our previous films”. Asked if he was anxious about audience-loss, Wheatley said, “I don’t know what losing your audience is. There’s walkouts, but what kind of an idiot walks out of a film?”
According to Variety, the film was made on “a relatively modest budget of under $20 million” and will hit “US theatres on May 13”. You can watch the trailer below.
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