In a world where even the initial trailer for a film seems to spoil much of the fun, it’s a breath of fresh air when an inventive piece of marketing comes across. Today we have just that for Ben Wheatley‘s adaptation of J.G. Ballard‘s 1975 dystopian novel High-Rise. The film tells the story of a doctor, played by Tom Hiddleston, who moves into a luxury apartment complex that is cut off from the rest of society, and we named it one of the best films of TIFF. Hailing from the U.K. — where it’ll be released in March, before Magnet Releasing bows it in the United States — the teaser is the perfect introduction to this distinctive world with shades of certain uneasiness creeping up towards the end.
We said in our review, “As soon as the voice of Tom Hiddleston‘s Dr. Robert Laing was heard speaking narration above his weathered and crazed visage manically moving from cluttered, dirty room to darkened feverish corner, my mind started racing. Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas popped into my consciousness and then his Brazil, after a quick title card shoves us back in time to watch as Laing enters his new concrete behemoth of a housing structure, oppressively standing above a vast and still parking lot. Add the clinical precision of Stanley Kubrick dolly shots and the chaotic, linear social ladder climb of Snowpiercer with a bitingly satirical wit replacing the high-octane action and you come close to describing the masterpiece that is Ben Wheatley‘s High-Rise.”
Check out the teaser below and a pair of posters from Midnight Marauder.
High-Rise opens in the UK on March 18th and sometime next year in the U.S.