Such is the case with High-Rise, the cinematic adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s dystopian novel of the perils of contemporary society via a problem-riddled Brutalist-styled tower (which was filmed in the real-life Bangor Leisure Center designed by Hugo Simpson in Belfast, Northern Ireland). Architecture enthusiasts will enjoy the visual splendor of this film, which lovingly examines 1970s period detail amid an unflinching Brutalist aesthetic. Although those with a beating heart may find the stylized chilliness of the principal protagonists a bit off-putting, the spatially gorgeous framing and extensive production design by Mark Tildesley can’t be denied. High-Rise makes your palms feel gritty and your eyes ache from all of the raw concrete, halogen-based hall lamps, and rectilinear-framed natural lighting.

On a haptic level, High-Rise makes your palms feel gritty and your eyes ache from all of the raw concrete, halogen-based hall lamps, and rectilinear-framed natural lighting. The 40-story tower, designed by an elite, creepy architect Royal (played by the ever nimble Jeremy Irons) is a mixed-use affair that incorporates a grocery store, a primary school, and residential units stacked above them into a kind of yawning asymmetry. The expansive set for the building's Le Corbusier-inspired foyer was designed in real-life by Tildesley in the ample environs of the Old Stena Terminal on Belfast's Ballast Quay, as was the penthouse that opens out onto the High-Rise's top terrace. This terrace features a resplendent open-air garden where various animals, including a horse, are free to roam among lush greenery. All of this is sited in the middle of a featureless parking lot which aerial shots render into an asphalt wasteland, which is suitable for a parable about a society consumed only with itself.  

The environment beyond the tower is indistinct, unimportant, and probably hostile: the only real experience of “the city” is protagonist Dr. Robert Laing’s (Tom Hiddleston) forays to his school of physiology, where he dispassionately peels the face flesh from cadavers and prises open skulls. He’s not immune to pleasure, of course (spoiler alerts abound): shortly after his upper floor neighbor (Sienna Miller) accidentally knocks a glass onto his deck while he’s sunbathing in the nude, the two exchange a little carnal knowledge. In the High-Rise, it’s apparently the neighborly thing to do: during a game of squash the architect reveals his intimate knowledge of that same neighbor with the nonchalance of a man appraising a piece of furniture, which makes Laing wince.

Of course, it is Laing’s gradual movement from dispassionate observer into full-fledged ringleader of social breakdown which provides the narrative contrapposto to the WYSIWYG allegory of the tower. In the film's opening, we first meet Laing when he is covered in blood and roasting the leg of a German Shepherd over an open fire; a flashback allows us to it's clear that something is awry with his new digs. watch Laing’s unraveling over a span of only three months. Although Laing moves from the outside world into what appears to be the latest and most chic tower (an artful sequence that has the visual cadence of a music video more than a traditional cinematic montage), it’s clear that something is awry with his new digs. This is a society dominated by a remote and disinterested governance; the electricity frequently goes out, and much of the built-in technology, including the intercom in the architect’s own apartment, is either on the fray or downright inoperative. Although people protest the lack of basic services by clustering in the foyer, they are ignored while cases of white wine are personally shuttled to the upper decks.

What sets apart this adaptation and much of J.G. Ballard’s work in general is his uncanny ear for the disaffected attitude of people in a bad situation. It’s not that there is any mystery as to what is going on the in the tower; the lower residents aren’t the victims of some conspiracy, but rather its somewhat addled participants. Every occupant of the tower knows that their society is unbalanced and that basic needs aren’t being met. The narrative here isn’t about correcting an injustice, but rather the story of trying to gain an advantage within that injustice (and have some Bacchanalian parties while doing so). In a particularly lovely visual signifier, during the relatively saner portion of the descent Laing paints a small silver square on his apartment wall with a test can of paint. Later, as mores collapse and trash is left heaped in the hall, Laing begins painting on his face and draws primal figures all over: on walls, on furniture, on whatever is at hand. Finally, he kills a man over a can of paint: it was his can of paint, after all.

Laing’s insanity is framed as being proper, almost elegant, in comparison to the hard-charging, more emotionally volatile rebellions of the lower floor neighbors. The suitably named character of Richard Wilder (Luke Evans) angrily leads a birthday party’s worth of children to the pool after the kids have been barred from entering because the slightly richer occupants find them too noisy. Wilder becomes a problem for the Architect, who begins to confer with Laing on how to handle the less agreeable tenants. This doesn’t prevent Laing from eventually getting it on with Wilder’s pregnant wife Helen (Elizabeth Moss) during the orgiastic portion of the breakdown, when everyone (and seemingly, every species) is hooking up.The notion of a great overseer who does not (or rather, cares not to) see is a timeless conceit

The choice to keep the movie rooted within the novel’s original period of the 1970s, as opposed to updating it with contemporary fashions and fixtures, is perhaps a reflection of its British origins: the final sequence uses a somewhat ham-fisted appropriation of a period political speech to clearly make its point about the problems of capitalism and rigid hierarchical social models. However, from an architectural point of view, the problems here are not period specific. The notion of a great overseer who does not (or rather, cares not to) see is a timeless conceit, as is the problematic structure of the tower itself. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A society with no accountability is a doomed structure, no matter if it’s made of glass, aluminum, or vintage 1970s precast concrete.