High Life (2018)

[Winston T. Boogie]

Title: High Life

Tagline: Oblivion Awaits.

Genre: Drama, Science Fiction, Mystery, Horror

Director: Claire Denis

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth, Agata Buzek, Lars Eidinger, Claire Tran, Ewan Mitchell, Gloria Obianyo, Scarlett Lindsey, Jessie Ross, Victor Banerjee, Juliette Picollot, John Kimani Njeri

Release: 2018-11-07

Runtime: 110

Plot: A father and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space where they live in isolation.

 

[Peter McM]

Opens this weekend. Can't believe no one's talking about this, though it is overshadowed by Avengers Endgame. While I'm waiting for lines to Endgame to thin out, I'll be eager to see High Life.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Whelp, it’s been years - years! - since I’ve started a movie and just couldn’t bring myself to finish it, but unfortunately, I could not make it through High Life. I very much wanted to like it, but... nope.

 

[Hanson]

Well Josh, I can't disagree with you. I also started watching with great anticipation and ended up stopping halfway through. I was not a pleasant experience, and this is coming from someone who sat through the entirety of Murder Mystery.

 

[bujaki]

A lone dissenter, along with my wife? We found it fascinating, engrossing, etc., etc. Glad we saw it on a big screen.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

This on my list to see and so I have not read any reviews yet except the short funny ones...which this seems to have plenty of...

"WORST MOVIE EVER!!!" (Obviously someone writes this for every film ever made.)

"TOTAL WASTE OF TIME!!!"

"BORING!"

"Avoid this like the plague!"

"PIECE OF CRAP!" (Note there are many versions of this one including lots of profanity.)

"Utter garbage."

"A root canal would be better than sitting through this."

"A vile cesspool of a film."

"A visual litany of abuse and degradation."

"Awful!"

"You'll have more fun watching animals at the zoo defecating."

"All I can say about this movie is someone forgot to flush." (lots of poop references with this picture)

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I find the trailer very compelling. It seems that many of the complaints about the picture have to do with the content. I don't know, it looks very interesting to me.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Well Josh, I can't disagree with you. I also started watching with great anticipation and ended up stopping halfway through. I was not a pleasant experience, and this is coming from someone who sat through the entirety of Murder Mystery.

I hadn’t even heard of this movie till today. My wife and I couldn’t get through 30’ of MM, so I’ll probably wait for this movie to stream.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

A lone dissenter, along with my wife? We found it fascinating, engrossing, etc., etc. Glad we saw it on a big screen.

I agree. It's probably in my top 5 for the year so far.

 

[bujaki]

A fellow mate! Denis is a great director and Pattinson is very good in this film.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Whelp, it’s been years - years! - since I’ve started a movie and just couldn’t bring myself to finish it, but unfortunately, I could not make it through High Life. I very much wanted to like it, but... nope.

It's a snoozer.

As I say in my review, it's "Interstellar" as directed Terrence Malick.

If that floats your boat, rock on! Damned thing bored the crap out of me!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

As I say in my review, it's "Interstellar" as directed Terrence Malick.

It’s not even that good!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

It’s not even that good!

You know what I meant!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I try to give science-fiction and space films a wide latitude with their portrayal of space missions since everyone has to deal with the practical real world problem of being stuck on Earth in real gravity when actually making the movie.

But it was really hard for me to accept the scene where Pattinson is working on making repairs on the exterior of the space ship, and he actually drops a wrench which falls away. Or when he dumps the bodies of the crew out the airlock, and they actually fall. Obviously it wouldn't happen that way in real life. What just about every other filmmaker would do is avoid showing the actual drift away moment if they didn't have the special effects budget, rather than showing something which is obviously impossible. It really pulled me out of a film and made me distrustful of the filmmakers and the narrative being told.

Simply put, I didn't believe what they were showing me, and that disbelief continued to mount until watching the film turned into an entirely unpleasant chore, and that's when I bailed.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

It's like a classic Star Trek episode but with lots of bodily fluids and sex.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I try to give science-fiction and space films a wide latitude with their portrayal of space missions since everyone has to deal with the practical real world problem of being stuck on Earth in real gravity when actually making the movie.

But it was really hard for me to accept the scene where Pattinson is working on making repairs on the exterior of the space ship, and he actually drops a wrench which falls away. Or when he dumps the bodies of the crew out the airlock, and they actually fall. Obviously it wouldn't happen that way in real life. What just about every other filmmaker would do is avoid showing the actual drift away moment if they didn't have the special effects budget, rather than showing something which is obviously impossible. It really pulled me out of a film and made me distrustful of the filmmakers and the narrative being told.

Simply put, I didn't believe what they were showing me, and that disbelief continued to mount until watching the film turned into an entirely unpleasant chore, and that's when I bailed.

Well, the only thing I would say about that is the goal of the picture was not at all to portray space travel or existing in space in an accurate way. It would seem the idea Ms. Denis had was to portray something about human beings...as the people in this story were all totally disposable.

Definitely not a classic. Perhaps not even a good film. Certainly has very, very low value in terms of something you would want to see again. It oddly made me think of Facebook...or an article I read about worker conditions of content moderators. So, I sort of felt it reflected how people have shifted to feeling other human beings are no more than piles of piss and shit. Really not cheery stuff.

This is the thing about a film like this, it is not really about what is happening onscreen, it is about what it makes you think about....which honestly...was pretty unpleasant.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I try to give science-fiction and space films a wide latitude with their portrayal of space missions since everyone has to deal with the practical real world problem of being stuck on Earth in real gravity when actually making the movie.

But it was really hard for me to accept the scene where Pattinson is working on making repairs on the exterior of the space ship, and he actually drops a wrench which falls away. Or when he dumps the bodies of the crew out the airlock, and they actually fall. Obviously it wouldn't happen that way in real life. What just about every other filmmaker would do is avoid showing the actual drift away moment if they didn't have the special effects budget, rather than showing something which is obviously impossible. It really pulled me out of a film and made me distrustful of the filmmakers and the narrative being told.

Simply put, I didn't believe what they were showing me, and that disbelief continued to mount until watching the film turned into an entirely unpleasant chore, and that's when I bailed.

Sometimes not limited just because of the effects budget. Reminds me of a critical plot moment in 'Gravity' which completely throws the rules of physics out the window. Seriously, how could they have missed that one?

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Sometimes not limited just because of the effects budget. Reminds me of a critical plot moment in 'Gravity' which completely throws the rules of physics out the window. Seriously, how could they have missed that one?

The problem being that science fiction films almost never care about accurately portraying science or physics. Basically, those sort of things just confuse people and detract from the story they are trying to tell. I think most people don't even grasp the basics of being in space, they judge what they see based upon other entertainment they have watched. Which is why most filmmakers focus more on the yarn than the science fact. If you are aware and intelligent enough to spot these mistakes, well, it is going to make watching pretty much all of these genre films a chore.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

The most gigantic flaw to me is the story never got me to invest in any of the characters. So, I never felt any concern over what happened to any of them. I think that's sort of my own issue though as it is central to the film that the characters are disposable.

As a viewing experience though, that left me just sort of watching a series of unpleasant ideas that seemed mostly executed in a ham-fisted manner.

 

[Chris Will]

Sometimes not limited just because of the effects budget. Reminds me of a critical plot moment in 'Gravity' which completely throws the rules of physics out the window. Seriously, how could they have missed that one?

What moment are you talking about? Just curious.