-
Director Ben Wheatley’s trippy thriller High-Rise was first released a few months ago, but now you can finally check out the behind-the-scenes commentary from Wheatley and star Tom Hiddleston about the Magnolia Pictures film. (Basically: explain yourself, Wheatley!) Adapted by Amy Jump from the J.G. Ballard novel, High-Rise stars Hiddleston as Dr. Robert Laing, a man seeking solitude, but finds the opposite. The opulence of the modern compound where he now resides is on the brink of class warfare, which ushers in an off-kilter and ultra-violent set of circumstances.
The featured clip, however, mercifully focuses on a naked Hiddles, which is really all we can ask for. As Hiddleston comments while watching the scene: “He’s a great character and … there he is with no clothes on.” Wheatley jumps in, “This is it, this is my whole plan, to hang all of the marketing on Tom Hiddleston being naked. And it’s worked a treat!” You may joke, Wheatley, but you knew what you were doing indeed! (Also, thank you).
High-Rise also stars Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, James Purefoy, and Sienna Guillory, and is currently available OnDemand. If you haven’t seen it yet and want to know more, check out the trailer as well as the official synopsis below. For even more on High-Rise, be sure to check out Steve's interviews with Tom Hiddleston, Ben Wheatley, and Elisabeth Moss.
HIGH-RISE stars Hiddleston as Dr. Robert Laing, the newest resident of a luxurious apartment in a high-tech concrete skyscraper whose lofty location places him amongst the upper class. Laing quickly settles into high society life and meets the building’s eccentric tenants: Charlotte (Miller), his upstairs neighbor and bohemian single mother; Wilder (Evans), a charismatic documentarian who lives with his pregnant wife Helen (Moss); and Mr. Royal (Irons), the enigmatic architect who designed the building. Life seems like paradise to the solitude-seeking Laing. But as power outages become more frequent and building flaws emerge, particularly on the lower floors, the regimented social strata begins to crumble and the building becomes a battlefield in a literal class war. HIGH-RISE is the latest film by cult British director Ben Wheatley (Kill List, A Field in England), an ambitious adaptation of the J.G. Ballard novel of the same name.
