High-Rise (2015)
Directed by Ben Wheatley
No — High-Rise is not especially woke, scoring 21 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Ben Wheatley's High-Rise arrives carrying a 1975 novel, a Belfast soundstage, and the weary conviction that civilization is a thin coat of paint over a parking garage.
Consciousness Markers
The film is a sustained allegory of class warfare, decadence of the wealthy upper floors, and the collapse of a luxury capitalist enclave, closing on a Margaret Thatcher broadcast denouncing state capitalism.
The film is largely atmospheric and absurdist rather than preachy, though the closing Thatcher quote and the class-conflict allegory carry a pointed ideological message.
Female characters (Charlotte, Helen, Ann) exist but are largely positioned as objects of desire or victims of violence, including a graphic rape; the film's organizing conflict is class, not gender.
The cast is overwhelmingly white British, with no meaningful effort at diverse or color-conscious casting; the ensemble reflects the source novel's insular upper-class milieu rather than any representational agenda.
No LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, or themes appear in the film; the sexual content is entirely heterosexual.
The film's central antagonism is between economic floors of a tower block, not racial groups; race is essentially absent as a thematic concern.
No environmental or climate themes; the building's failing infrastructure is a metaphor for social decay, not ecological crisis.
No body-positivity themes; the film's treatment of bodies is one of violence, decay, and butchery.
No neurodivergence themes; the psychological breakdown depicted is framed as social and moral collapse, not neurodiversity.
The film is a fictional dystopia set in 1975, not a re-framing or revision of real historical events.
Why it received this score
Ben Wheatley's High-Rise arrives carrying a 1975 novel, a Belfast soundstage, and the weary conviction that civilization is a thin coat of paint over a parking garage. The tower block is a vertical caste system: money at the top, resentment below, and a swimming pool where everyone eventually forgets which floor they came from. Wheatley stages the collapse with real gusto, and the film's politics are unmistakable. This is an allegory of class warfare, of luxury enclaves rotting from within, and it closes with Margaret Thatcher on the radio denouncing state capitalism, a needle dropped with the delicacy of a sledgehammer.
On the matter of social consciousness, the ledger is mixed. The cast is almost entirely white and British, which suits the insular upper-class milieu but offers nothing in the way of representational ambition. Race is not a subject here. The war is fought between floors, not peoples. The environment is likewise absent as a concern; the failing infrastructure is a metaphor for social decay, not ecological collapse, and the film has no interest in carbon footprints. Bodies fare poorly throughout. They are beaten, butchered, spit-roasted, and thrown from balconies, which is not a body-positivity program so much as a butcher's window display.
Women appear as objects of desire, victims of violence, or both, and the graphic assault on Charlotte is staged with a grimness the film never quite reckons with. Gender is not the organizing principle. Class is. The result is atmospheric, absurdist, and only occasionally preachy, with the ideological messaging carried more by imagery than by speeches. It is a film that trusts its audience to read a collapsing building. That is a modest virtue, and in this genre, a rare one.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
Life for the residents of a tower block begins to run out of control.
Questions about High-Rise
Is High-Rise woke?
No — High-Rise is not especially woke, scoring 21 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Based.
Does High-Rise have any woke elements?
1 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Eat the Rich (72). On Eat the Rich: The film is a sustained allegory of class warfare, decadence of the wealthy upper floors, and the collapse of a luxury capitalist enclave, closing on a Margaret Thatcher broadcast denouncing state capitalism.
How does High-Rise compare to other 2015 movies?
It ranks #68 of the 289 films from 2015 we've scored; their average is 15. The wokest is Chi-Raq (78).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.